


Space Dreams

by Levi_Lane



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Gore, Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-13
Updated: 2017-09-19
Packaged: 2018-08-30 21:05:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 57,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8549056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Levi_Lane/pseuds/Levi_Lane
Summary: After being sucked out of a wormhole and plummeted into a deserted planet, Keith and Lance begin their adventure around the galaxy to find the Altean ship and their friends. (Takes place after season 1)





	1. Shipwrecked

Their world is spinning, everyone is screaming and panicking as they spiral through a compromised wormhole, Allura and Coran try their best to pull the lions to their bays. But, to no avail, they're unsuccessful, the wormhole is spreading everyone too far apart too fast and doing anything besides flying through a wormhole is nearly impossible in the first place. The last thing Allura sees and hears of her paladins is Shiro being oddly quiet, Hunk is vomiting, Pidge is screaming as they try to take control of their lion, Keith is screaming as well, but Lance, he says something in a language she doesn't recognize, they sounds so desperate and full of fear. Those screams and last ditch efforts to save themselves from the sides of the wormhole, will forever be burned into her mind as suddenly, it's eerily quiet and they pop out of the wormhole, in a solar system unknown to her. Within a few moments, their search for the lions have begun once more, now with dear friends to save too.

Keith pulls back on Red's controls as he nears the sides of the wormhole, now upside down, the tail of his lion touches the wormhole's edge and he's sucked in. "DAMMIT!" He screams out, he's sucked against his seat, he tightens his grip on the steering stick shifts in front of him, his knuckles turning red, then white. Unlucky for Keith, he was spit out right next to a planet with a gravitational pull similar to Earth's. Within seconds, Keith and his lion are sucked into this planet's atmosphere, basically doing a nose dive to the unknown surface below. Currently, Keith's view is nothing but intense red flames.

Red will be alright won't he? Lance's lion had the same thing happen to it as it entered Arus's atmosphere....Red will be okay....

Keith tries his best to steady his lion and slow it down, once he does, Red is unresponsive.

"Red?! C'mon, this isn't the time to be stubborn or test me! Please!" Keith begs, as he sees the surface of the planet below become visible. "Oh no, oh no, we're going too fast!" He pulls back on his lion as hard as he can, he pulls his lion to either side to at least get them out of the nose dive they're in. Nothing is working, Keith finally starts to fully panic, his heart is hammering in his chest, his ears are slammed with the sound of his pounding heart, he can't even make a sound as the ground becomes closer and closer, his throat feels clogged up, his mouth is dry, unlike his eyes. He doesn't even realize he's crying until his tears drip off his jaw and onto his still tightly clenched hands. "RED!" He finally screams out, then, Red responds, barely pulling up so they can slide against the desert like ground beneath them. After that command, Red blacks out entirely, Keith's invisible restraints are now gone, he is slammed against the hard wall in front of him.

Keith and his lion roll and crash through countless amounts of mountains and rocks, Keith being tossed about like a ragdoll just like his lion. Eventually, they come to a stop, Keith is laying up against a wall, bloody, bruised and unconscious. Red is laying in an open valley, the valley is dry, desert like, the ground is hard and cracking, the surface is a dark blood red, which stains the white parts of Red's body.

Night falls over the planet, a night that will last for 70 days, the only light Keith and Red will have is the stars above and the four moons orbiting the massive, desert like planet. Dead and devoid of alien life, Keith will have to fight for his survival until his rescue or capture, whichever comes first.

Keith wakes up with a pounding headache and a extremely sore body. He cracks his eyes open slowly, the red emergency lights are still pulsing in the cockpit around him other than that, there's no other light, when the warm red light becomes bright, he can see his chair, and the manual control panels around him, and as the light fades out, he is only left with a faint outline of the room.

"Aaaghhh...." He moans out, he slowly takes off his helmet, he touches his head, other than a laceration across his right temple from where the glass of his helmet shattered during the crash, his head was fine. The blood on his face, now dry, the wound still swollen and throbbing; is scabbed over. This meant, he's been out for awhile, but how long? Keith looks down at his body, he waits for the light to brighten to assess his wounds. His armor is bent and broken, on his right leg, from the shin down, his armor was gone completely. His ankle looks sprained, but that looks about it, he doesn't think anything else on him was damaged. Keith looks over at the main controls, he has to get Red's power back on to locate exactly where he is and where his friends are. He moves to stand up, he knows, with a sprained ankle, he won't be able to walk normally, so he uses the wall next to him as support to stand but, as he attempts to stand, he is stopped by a gut wrenching pain in his torso. He plops back down on the ground and holds his stomach. He starts to strip off his armor, first the armor on his arms and then his torso, he takes off his chest plate and tosses it to the side, when he does the room brightens up just long enough for him to see how bent in his chest plate was. "Jeez...."he horses out, his voice still sore from the screaming before.

Keith tries to take a deep breath but is stopped short.

Broken ribs, it had to be broken ribs, I thought this suit was supposed to protect me?

Keith drags himself towards the manual controls, he pops open the small metal door, a display of wires decorates the inside, some wires thicker than others, each of them different colors, ranging in lengths. It takes painfully long time for Keith to take in account the damaged done in that section alone, then it takes fifteen minutes and three pieces of glass from his helmet to cut through different wires to finally hotwire the basic controls of his lion. The red pulsing lights become faint as the holographic controls brighten up the room, now with a more reddish-orangish glow. Keith pulls himself up to his chair which quickly pulls him forward to the controls. He screams out in pain as his body is jolted forward suddenly. He takes a moment to breathe away the pain in his torso and ankle, then starts to dig through his controls.

First up, is to figure out where the hell he is. His location is undivfinitive, all he knows is that he's still in the Milky Way, which is good that he did not in some local galactic group or a virgo supercluster. Next is, where his friends could be, he scans for their lions over and over. Nothing, not even the slightest glow of any sort of ship on the map around him. He sighs and sits back a bit, staring at the map in front of him. He could try to send out a distress signal to the Altean ship but that uses a lot of power, power Red may or may not have. He looks up his current power percentage, his face drains of color when he sees he has barely fifteen percent left, only two hours before any luxury power extensions are turned off, which means he needs to get all the supplies from the small cargo bay before all unnecessary doors are rendered powerless, Keith pulls himself up and slowly limps himself out of the cockpit's doors and down the small hall to the cargo area, which is a closet-like area with a few crates and a bag inside for emergencies like these.

Keith slowly drags the heavy crates out into the hall, opening up one of the crates, pulling out the first aid kit, to wrap up his ankle and clean up the cut on his temple. He pulls himself up and goes back to the cockpit, he has to send out a signal, even if it means Red would be out of commission for a few days. He sits down in his command chair, he thinks about his decision once more; save the power to potentially find out where he is and search for his friends or...use all his power to send out a signal that may or may not reach Allura and Coran. Keith closes his eyes and imagines all his friends, the ones he's grown to love, even Lance. All the good and bad times, training together and slacking off together. He opens his eyes and looks across the map again and again.

I could look for them, I could find them, one of them could be close by...to think of it, I remember seeing Lance's lion right next to mine as I went out the wormhole, he could be nearby, I could find him and help him. What if he's hurt? What if Shiro, Hunk or Pidge is hurt? Or worse Allura or Coran...I could hunt them down and find them. I could.....I could....

His hand hovers above the distress signal, his hand his shaky and weak. Should he? Should he risk it? If he does send the signal, he could be able to get back to the ship, heal, fix Red and have more resources to find his friends....if they survive that long. Suddenly Coran's voice plays through Keith's mind, "Put your teammates's lives over your own! Protect your teammates!"

"Protect my teammates...." Keith looks at the map, at the battery percentage and then at the signal. He clenches his jaw, and slams his hand down. Suddenly Red gets up into sitting position and gives out a roar, a roar that shoots out of the atmosphere and through the galaxy, to radiate to any other lion or to the Altean ship itself. "I'm sorry guys....but I have to get back, we're the future of the galaxy, we're Voltron."

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Lance here! Blue told me about this video message thing?? I can send these out to Altean ship with my location so I can be rescued! Although I don't really need any help, he insists that I send one out just in case to all of my fellow paladins and Allura!" He laughs. "Anyways, I'll attach my location in the video message and hopefully I'll see one of you soon!" Lance ends the message and leans back in his chair, holding his fractured hand against his stomach which, has a huge cut across it.

"You sure they'll get it, Blue?" Lance asks with a nervous tone. Blue hums back, consoling his paladin. Lance sighs and looks out on the muddy ground around them, now, with the sun beating down on them and the mud is quickly drying. "Let's get out of this mud and to somewhere higher...." He gently climbs up to a shaded ledge, looking over this vast, empty planet he's on.

Where are we, Blue? There doesn't seem to be any life at all on this planet....

Blue pulls up a map of their location, they're on a planet that is orbiting a planet that is orbiting a star....technically this planet's sun. Lance zooms out even further, looking across the vast constellations near by. He spots one that almost looks like the big dipper, a sad smile spreads across Lance's face as he remembers sitting with his mother on their back porch, hearing the soft waves crash against the nearby beach, his mother pointed up to the sky and told him about the big dipper how it

always points to the North Star. It wasn't the most exciting or useful information but that moment sparked something within Lance, to become a pilot so he could see all those stars even closer, to explore the universe.

His heart ached at the thought of home, his mom, dad, abuelita and abuelito. His cousins, brothers and sisters, maybe even a niece or nephew. Although they weren't together all the time, they always met up at Lance's house for holidays that's next to the clearest, bluest ocean you would ever see. It's the ocean Lance fell in love with, the one he yearns to go back to one day. Lance closes his eyes and imagines the garlic knots he would make with his younger brother, store bought of course, they would always slightly burn the bottom of the garlic knots due to them forgetting in the oven which would always lead to them arguing over whose fault it was to let them burn. Blue stirs and brings Lance back from his dream land.

"You what?" Lance sits up in surprise, Blue pulls up a map of the planet he's on, on the other side of the planet, a faint, very faint glow of red appears. "It just gave out a distress signal...red...KEITH! IT'S KEITH!" Lance pulls up a video message and records as he rushes towards the location of the faint glow.

"Keith! Is that you?! It's Lance, are you alright? I'm headed your way!"

Lance waits for a response back as he runs across the now hard ground to Keith's location. Keith doesn't answer, in fact, the message was never delivered, Keith's lion is too weak to send or receive information that wasn't the basic maps of large solar systems or collections of solar systems already pre-programmed into the system, hence, Keith only knowing he's at least still in the Milky Way.

Isn't Red supposed to be super strong and agile? How damaged can he be for him to shut down completely?! Is Keith okay?!

Lance knows they don't get along well, always competing and fighting but, over time they've grown on each other, liking and respecting their company even considering themselves as friends. So, Lance has all right to be worried for his friend. He picks up speed, soon enough he sees the sky change, from midday to late afternoon. The sun was setting, the sky was bursting with color. Reds, oranges, yellows, pinks and purples until finally, smudging into a deep blue. Within a few minutes, it was night and it was pouring rain.

"So it rains at night? That’s why the ground was so muddy when I got here...." Lance mumbles to himself. Lance keeps running and running, the red glow on the map is still faint even as he approaches it's location. It's hard to see, the rain in coming down in buckets, making movement in the now thick dark mud nearly impossible. "He should be right around here!" Lance and Blue slosh through the mud, coating Blue's entire bottom half in mud, adding to the dried mud that was there when they crashed. Lance's heart is racing, he feels as if he's gonna vomit, the anticipation and nervousness is killing him.

Where is he? Where?! Is he okay? He has to be okay....He's Keith for fuck sake!"

Then, in the distance, two hazy red lights appear. Blue jumps out from the mud and flies toward the light. Lance lets him take control as Blue latches down on Red and pull him out of the sinking mud up to a nearby ledge. Lance jumps up from his seat but soon regretting it, clutching his stomach and

doubling over. He stumbles to the exit of his lion and Blue opens up a pathway that connects to Red's. He makes his way into Keith's Lion, only to find him slumped over in his command chair, unconscious.

"Keith!" Lance shakes him, Keith's face crumples up in pain. That eases some anxiety for Lance, knowing he isn't dead. Lance turns his head and sees his blood covered face. Keith's cut, was more than that, is was one hell of a gash, Lance peels off the dirty bandage that Keith obviously tried to cover up his wound with and tosses it to the side.

I can't see anything in here, it's so dark....Keith, buddy, you're coming with me.

Lance picks up Keith bridal style, and slowly makes it back to his lion. He takes him into a small room that's made for the pilot of each lion when going on long trips, Lance lays him down and sees his gash on his face in a better light, his stomach churns. It's going to leave one hell of a scar, Lance notices that he's taken off the top half of his armor, why? He looks at his legs, broken armor and a wrapped up ankle, a poorly wrapped up one at that.

How bad of crash did you get in? Where did you get those bandages?

Lance walks back into Keith's lion and finds crates pulled out into the hall, with a open first aid kit laying next to them, Lance scoops up the bag and carries it back to Keith. Lance feels a little light headed and is out of breath, his wound is surely getting to him now but, it's not as bad as Keith, considering he's the one passed out. He cleans Keith's face, well only around the wound not wanting to waste any of their materials. The cut was deep and showed pieces of white and yellow inside, he didn't want to think of what that was but, Lance did his best to pick out all the glass and disinfect it. He decided that it needed to be stitched up. Lance swallows, knowing this won't be pleasant and Keith may even wake up during the process.

In the Garrison, to become a fighter pilot you have to pass a lot of tests, not just for flying or knowledge about your ship but, first aid along with some training to patch up some serious wounds. Happy but a little apprehensive, Lance finds a needle and medical thread in the first aid kit. Letting out a long breath, Lance sucks up his nerves and focuses on helping his friend. He threads the needle and slowly stitches him up. Keith never woke, Lance bandages him back up and moves down to his ankle. Unwrapping it, it was pretty swollen, he cringes as he moves his foot back and forth expecting to hear a crunching sound of his bones but when that didn't come he sighed in relief and rewrapped his ankle. He takes off the rest of Keith's armor and lets him rest in his skin tight black jumpsuit that they all have under their armor. He elevates his foot, and finally sits down on the ground next to the bed. He pulls his armor off and slips off the top part of his jumpsuit to expose the cut across his stomach. Lance swallows as he picks up an disinfectant and pours the clear thickish liquid onto his stomach. His eyes shoot open, he bites his lip to suppress his scream of pain. His breathing becomes heavy and unsteady as he watches his wound bubble up and ooze. He has to pour more, and he does, he lets out a few whimpers of pain and he then, places a piece of gauze on his wound and wraps up his torso. He leans back and breathes out, looking over at Keith. He must have one hell of a concussion, he could only imagine the amount of pain he's in, he would be surprised if he could even manage to stay awake longer than a few seconds with a wound like that on his head.

Lance eventually gets up and walks into the cockpit of his lion. He sits down and turns on his video message and starts recording.

"S-so, I found Keith and he isn't looking too well..." He reaches up and scratches the back of his head, which happens to be the fractured hand. Flinching at the pain, he lowers his hand slowly back down. "he has a huge gash on his face and he's knocked out cold....I've moved locations again since then...so, I'll send my location again!" He pauses for a moment, "I hope this gets to someone, I think we're gonna stay here for a while, at least until Keith is better." He turns off the recording and sits back.

A whole day passes, well, according to his clock in his lion anyways. But, if you look out a window, it's still the dead of the night. Lance has been sleeping off and on and checking on Keith, he swore he heard him talking to himself once, so when he rushed in to see if he was awake, he was still out cold. That's where he is now, sitting on the edge of the small bed, at Keith's feet, waiting on him to wake up, and for Allura or any of his friends to contact him back. So far, it's just been quiet, very quiet. Lance has never liked the quiet, he's always tried to fill up the void with a joke or random chatter. Lance scoots back all the way on to the bed, leaning against the window looking out onto their current planet, he closes his eyes. He misses his headphones back on the Altean ship, it would always take away that eerie silence when he fell asleep, right now he wishes to have any kind of music softly playing. He would feel less tense....his stomach starts to growl, Lance opens his eyes and sighs. Slowly scooting back off the bed, he slowly walks into his cargo area. After figuring out where Keith had found his first aid stuff and emergency kits, Lance dug into his.

Cracking open a can of that green goo, he slurps it down, not having a soon he made do.

"Wha-where?" He hears Keith groan out, Lance rushes back, with a bit of a limp in his step.

"Keith!" Lance shouts. Keith is holding his head, his eyes are glazed over from sleep and his hair is a mess, coated in a thin layer of sweat, he looks up at Lance and smiles.

"Lance..!" He says back a bit weaker, "Wh-where are we?"

"Well, we're on some small planet orbiting a giant one, I thought it was a moon but then again we have three moons orbiting us, can a moon have a moon?" Keith stares at him for a moment, not wanting to kill his enthusiasm, he doesn't know how long he's been out and he doesn't know the last time he's had any human contact, he looks Lance over, he seems fine, he was limping when he ran in here though.

"Are you okay?" Keith asks.

"Am I okay? You've been unconscious for at least a day now!" Lance throws his arms up.

"Well, it obvious I got hurt, we know that," he grumps out, crossing his arms, tensing up at the pressure, almost forgetting about his ribs, "But where's your injuries, there's no way you of all people didn't get hurt."

"What's that supposed to mean?!"

"It means. That I, number one fighter pilot of my generation couldn't control my lion and got....my lion, where's Red?!" Keith shoves back the blankets and swings his legs off of the bed, Lance stumbles forward and stops him from getting up.

"He's fine, he's sitting next to us, I've been watching over him!" He says with pride. Keith stares at him for a moment.

"You haven't answered my question." Keith states dryly.

"I'm better off than you! That's all you need to know." Lance puffs out, cross his arms and turns away from Keith.

"Is that so?" Keith thinks of possible areas Lance could be hiding a wound. Obviously, anywhere under his clothes but, it has to be related to his limping. At first he considers just yanking his shirt up to see, but on second thought, he rather not have him running around telling people that he tried to strip him. So, might as well confront him about the limping, "So, why were you limping?"

"I was just excited to see you woke up! I stumbled that's all!"

Why is he so weird about admitting he got hurt? It's not that big of a deal, it's not like he was being clumsy or anything, they were in a huge wreck....

"Whatever." Keith gets up and slowly limps out of the door.

"Where do you think you're going?" Lance calls out.

"To check on Red." Keith slowly walks through the small connected pathway between the lions. Lance had to show him how he's been going back and forth between the two. Lance followed Keith closely behind, worried that he might pass out or fall over in his weaken state. Once Keith steps into his lion's cockpit, he gets bombarded by questions and concerns from his lion. Asking If he was alright to yelling at him for leaving him unprotected for so long. Keith gives out a chuckle and sits down in the command chair, Lance stays back in the doorway, not wanting to interfere.

"Lance was watching over you, and I am fine." Keith says back, checking on power and damage acquired during the crash. "There's what? Explain it for me please." Keith says eagerly.

"What is it?" Lance speaks up.

"He says there's this healing agent that can help heal wounds ten times faster." Keith trails off at the end of his sentence, obviously listening to his lion, Lance can't help but perk up at that information, he would do anything to get his hand working properly again and to have that cut across his stomach gone, Lance rushes back into his lion and immediately starts asking him where this healing agent is.

"Only for emergencies?! This is an emergency!" Lance goes to his emergency kits and digs through the crates with his good hand until he comes across this light pink container, it's about a foot long but is only has a three inch diameter. He unscrews the top and looks inside, the contents is a pink mixture, Blue hums, telling him to take a pinch out of it, "A pinch?" He says confused, Lance uses his pointer finger and thumb to pinch out a small bit of the pink goo, its thick and slime like. It reminds Lance of the Fart Puddy he would play with as a child. He puts it on his tongue and it immediately disintegrates. His entire mouth is coated in an intense sour flavor, he closes the container and flops back on the ground, clutching his puckered up mouth.

"What's wrong with you?" Keith stares down at a writhing Lance.

"That stuff is sour!!"

"Really? I didn't think so...." Keith shrugs.

"You...you're one of those people that can eat a lemon slice like this nothing, can't you?!" Lance shoots up onto his feet. Keith raises his eyebrows in an amused gesture and smirks.

"And so what if I can?" Lance gasps at that response. Keith drops his arms that were crossed before, now done playing around, he looks out the window next to Lance. "The food we have on our lions will only last us two months, we have to get back to the ship before then."

"I've sent to messages to the ship and to everyone else, but I haven't got a response."

"Sent a message?" Keith asks, now looking back at Lance.

"Yeah! Come look, Blue told me about it!" Lance leads Keith into the cockpit of his lion and turns on a video message. "This will send to everyone's lions and to Allura and Coran! I attach my location to it when I send it." Lance looks into the camera with a huge smile on his face. "Keith is up and moving! We took this healing goo and-" Lance stops himself short and realizes, his stomach isn't throbbing and he can move his hand just fine now, "and we will probably get looking for everyone soon!" Keith peeks his head into view and looks into the camera.

"Are you sure this will send? I didn't get the two you sent...."

"That's because you practically destroyed your lion! You ruined the message!" Lance cuts off the message and Blue automatically sends it.

"We were thrown out of a wormhole! AND crashed into a desert planet!! It's not my fault!"

"Then, how did Blue and I come out of this barely unharmed?" Lance snaps back. Keith was about to respond but he's cut off by a huge clap of thunder and the already pouring rain coming down even harder. "This storm is pretty bad, we should get out of here when it lets up...."

"Yeah...." Keith murmurs out, suddenly feeling a little uncomfortable. "Where to though?"

"Anywhere, we have the entire galaxy to explore." Lance looks out onto the blanket of rain in front of him. Keith lays his hand on Lance's shoulder giving it a bit of a squeeze before returning back to his lion.


	2. Don't be such a baby!

"Coran, I've scanned this solar system and each one surrounding us three times, we have to move on, they're not here." Allura speaks up, filling up the now unusual silence on the ship.   
"But, Allura, I swear I saw something on our transmission! It had to of been something!" Coran is working on two computers at once, scanning some sort of wave transmission on one and digging through a maze of Altean files on the other.   
"It could've just been a blimp in the system, that wormhole could've glitched some of our systems!" Allura tries to reason with Coran, he's been on a searching frenzy ever since they've left the wormhole. Allura has been worried and searching the best she can as well but, if she let's the stress get to her, she'll let down her defenses and accidentally fly them into Galra territory.   
"Princess, please, just a little longer here!" Coran turns around and faces her. Their eyes meet, his are filled with worry and dread, once Allura sees that, she turns away, bowing her head, giving him some more time. She looks up, the galaxy in front of her, filled with stars and planets, it's infinitely huge. Her heart twists up in pain, where could her paladins be? 

\----------  
"KEITH, YOU IDIOT!!!" Lance screams.   
"Try and keep up!" Keith calls back, flying through a storm of meteors easily. Lance is screaming, as he tries to fly through the meteors, bouncing off a few to catch up with Keith.   
"You're trying to kill me, I know it!"   
"Weren't you the one that challenged me to this race?"   
"I take it back!"   
"Too late now, we're almost there!" Keith says with a laugh. Keith speeds up, becoming a red blur to Lance who is trying his best not to get squashed. Soon enough and amazing enough, Lance comes out unharmed, he flies up next to Keith.   
"Thanks for leaving me, asshole!" Lance shouts.   
"Hey," Keith pops up on a small screen on Lance's dashboard, "You think we could hide out on that planet for tonight? Red says it’s a peaceful place."   
"Uh, sure. I haven't seen any Galra in a while so, I don't see why not! Maybe, we can find a village and have a huge feast there!" Lance smiles, and heads towards the teal tinted planet below. 

The planet is swamp-like with thick forests and small ponds here and there. The air is breathable and humid, and despite Lance's dream of a feast with the locals, the planet is filled with very laid back toad-like creatures. Toads that are the size of two story houses with gerths on them that would suggest that someone like Lance or Keith wouldn't even qualify to be a toothpick, if these toads even had teeth to pick.   
"Woahhhh!!! WHat IS THAT?!?!" Lance lets out a scream, his voice cracking a bit in the middle.   
"I-A toad?" Keith stutters out. Landing a pretty good distance away from the huge creature, they get out of their lions and stare over at the toad, both of them on their toes, ready to run if the thing moves. The toads eyes open, a small film peels away and the horizontal oval pupils appear, not looking at anything in particular.   
"Please don't move." Lance says under his breath as he starts walking towards it.   
"Where are you going?" Keith grabs the back of Lance's armor, pulling him back.   
"I wanna touch it." Lance simply states, Keith's eyes widen in shock, was Lance really that stupid? Why would he want to touch a giant toad?!   
"Why...."   
"Your lion said it was a peaceful planet, so, why not?"   
"Did you ask me why you shouldn't touch a toad that could crush you like a pancake with one of it's toes?" Keith can't believe what he's hearing, he looks up at the toad in the distance, "Maybe they're only peaceful from a distance. We really shouldn't-" 

"Stop being a baby!" Lance grabs Keith's wrist and breaks out into a run towards the toad. Keith looks at Lance, he has a huge smile spread across his face, no care in the world. Then, he looks back at the giant toad, still sitting there. Lance let's go of Keith's wrist has they come up on the toad, somehow Lance increases his speed even more and leaps into the air, smacking himself right against the slimy toad. Keith's jaw drops, he expects the toad to move or at least get agitated but to his surprise, the toad croaks as Lance slides down it's slippery stomach and fall to the ground. Keith goes up to him, he's covered in a thin layer of slime.   
"You look great." Keith says sarcastically. Lance wipes the slime off his mouth and flings it off to the side with his hand and laughs.   
"I feel great. Do you think the lions have showers?"   
"No, I don't...." 

 

\---------  
Back on the Altean ship, Coran was finally convinced to move on from their location, Allura was taking her first break to eat in days when Coran runs into the dining hall. He almost slams into the entrance doors before they automatically open up for him.   
"Princess! Princess!" He screams frantically, Allura spins around and faces Coran.   
"What's going on?!"   
"The thing I found on the transmission from before, you were right! It was a glitch, the wormhole short circuited some of our functions with video reception."   
"Then what's all this fuss about?"   
"I worked out the glitch and found three messages from the blue lion!" Allura perks up at the news, for ages she's been searching for any signs her paladins may still be alive. Now she has messages from the blue lion, possible messages from Lance himself. Allura shoots up out of her chair, leaving behind a plate full of green goo that she couldn't manage to eat, rushing towards the main control room, with Coran leading her up to the main podium, Coran pulls up three messages, all from the blue lion.   
"They were sent to the ship and to the rest of the lions." Coran states and then pressing play on the first one, Lance appears on the huge holographic screen in front of them. 

"Lance here! Blue told me about this video message thing...." The message continues, Allura smiles, her heart swells up, tears are brought to her eyes. Hope. She's filled to the brim of hope that she will reconnect with her paladins....no...her friends once more. The second message begins, "S-so I found Keith and he isn't looking to well..." In this one, Allura's heart breaks a bit as she notices how scared Lance looks, how unsure he is. She watches him bring his hand up to scratch the back of his head but is stopped when some sort of pain flashes through him. He lowers his hand back down and finishes off the message.   
"Coran before we play the last one, how old are my paladins?"   
"Well, princess, I believe Shiro is twenty humans years, Lance, Keith and Hunk are Seventeen human years and Pidge is fourteen human years."   
Allura looks up at the video that’s about to play. That’s very young for them all to be protectors of the galaxy. Allura feels sympathy for her paladins, this must be very hard for them to cope with, the last video begins. Lance is explaining a video message to someone, then Keith's head pops into frame, really close to the camera. Suddenly and unsurprisingly, they start arguing. Allura smiles, she can see through their bickering, they may put up a hateful or tough front in front of one another but deep down they really do care for each other. Allura's happiness is cut short when she hears them yelling about the Red Lion being destroyed and the message suddenly cut off.   
"Destroyed?! What do they mean "Destroyed"?!" Allura yells. There's no way they could destroy a lion, that would be physically impossible. They have to be exaggerating...right?   
"A lion being destroyed from a simple crash would be impossible, princess. You know Lance he was probably trying to make Keith sound bad!"   
"Coran, when did we receive these messages?" Allura asks impatiently.   
"Two weeks ago." Allura's heart sinks once more. Two weeks? They could be anywhere now.... 

\---------  
"So, how are we gonna clean your armor?" Keith picks up Lance's slime covered helmet.   
"Maybe we can just wash them off in one of those ponds." Lance peels off his black jumpsuit, and kicking it to the side. He walks over to the cargo bay of his lion and grabs the extra set of clothing, pulling on the jogger-like sweatpants, snatching up the shirt and walking back to Keith in the sleeping quarters. Keith has taken off his armor as well, the sun has went down but it's still unbelievably hot and humid making it unbearable to wear their armor. Keith's eyes fall on the scar across Lance's stomach, it has to be from the crash, that's why he was limping. He looks up to his freckled, dark chest, suddenly feeling a little, weird, about him being shirtless, he looks away from him and says,   
"Those ponds didn't looks very clean to me but, I guess we could try." He gets up, walks out of the room and towards the exit, "I'm gonna get out of this suffocating suit and I'll meet you outside."   
"Kay~" he calls out, not noticing Keith's abrupt exit. Keith changes and tells Red he will be back soon and to put up his shields if he senses any danger. He meets up with Lance right where they saw the toad which, has since moved away. The ground shakes, which means somewhere nearby those toads are hopping around, as they walk up to the large swamp looking pond the toad was sitting by earlier. Keith quietly hopes that those vibrations in the ground stay as faint as they are, he really doesn't want to be near one of those slime coated toads again. Lance drops his armor, squats down, and picks up his helmet.   
"This water is kinda murky...and green." Keith sits down on the other side of the armor, picking up an arm piece.   
"Well, it's all we got!" Lance slowly put his hand in the water and splashing it up on to his helmet. They both wait for a moment, seeing if the water would do something like burn a hole through Lance's helmet and hand or the water to come alive and kill them. Nothing happens so, Lance continues to wash his helmet. Keith cautiously joins him.   
Twenty minutes pass and Lance's armor is clean, a little grimy from the dirty water but at least no slime. Lance leans back on his hands, looking up at the sky that’s now filled with stars. Keith is hugging his knees, laying his head on his kneecaps, eyes closed. The wind blows, pushing the hair out of Keith's face, exposing his pale skin. Lance looks over at him, his breathing is low and steady, he's covered in sweat, just like he is. He seems peaceful, he may even be asleep.   
"Keith...Keith you can't fall asleep here." He nudges him, he cracks open his eyes, he lifts his head up, dazed. It's so unlike him, no scowl or a cocky smirk, just a pure, real look on his face. Lance's heart speeds up a bit. "Let's get back to our lions." Lance jumps up, gathering his armor. Keith straightens out his legs, and stretches his arms. He looks up at the sky for a moment, wondering why Lance stares up at them all the time, as if he waiting. Is he waiting on Allura to find us or our friends? Waiting on someone....Keith knows that feeling, he waited on his parents to come back to him for years; that waiting drained Keith, made him hate relying on anyone besides himself, made him never want to be close with anyone ever again...Keith gets up and helps carry the armor back to the lions. He wishes Lance's wait for whatever he's waiting for, actually comes, he doesn't want to see his friend suffer like he did.   
Lance shoves his armor into his sleeping quarters and sits down at his command chair to make a video message.   
"Hey! We're on another planet, so far we haven't been able to come across a planet that has locals yet...unless you count giant fucking toads as locals! I ran up to one of those toads and hugged it but who would've thought they would be covered in a slime," Lance shivers at the thought of the slime sticking to his body and his armor, "we cleaned it all off of me and the armor though. That’s why I’m out of uniform," he sighs dramatically, "I know I look amazing in my suit and if you see this Allura, just try to imagine me in it!" He smirks, proud of his flirting. Which, we can agree, won't do much good for him, "Well, I’m off to bed now, I'll send Keith's and I's location!" He ends the message and gets up, yawning, he walks into his room and flops face first down on his bed.   
Meanwhile, in the other cabin, Keith is making a video message too.   
"Hi...It's Keith, uh, we've finally moved from that last planet, you know that one with those snakes everywhere...I'm glad we left that planet." He pauses for a moment, "I'm pretty sure Lance has probably told you all about the toads and what we did today, but, I have a weird feeling, like this peacefulness, isn’t going to last long. Well, I'll attach the location and get to bed. I hope you all are doing okay...." He ends the video and sends it, he hopes he did that right, with that uneasy feeling he goes to bed.   
When Keith opens his eyes the next morning, he looks out the window; he's met with a giant toad eye, covering the length of the window, he screams and jolts backward out of the bed, he slamming against the ground twisted up in the blankets.   
"owwwww....." He groans out, holding his head.   
"What's your deal?!" He hears Lance's sleep soaked voice over, I guess would be called an intercom, just like in battle, you're able to talk to one another without setting up a video message or a call, so when Keith screamed, it shot into Lance's room as he was sleeping.   
"There's a toad outside of my window, it scared me." He mumbles.   
"It's just a toad!"   
"You don't understand! It was staring at me." Keith gets up, peeking his head above the bed, looking at the toad's eye. "it's still there!"   
"Just leave the room!" He yells back but sounding muffled this time because he shoved his face into his pillow trying to block out the morning light. Keith gets up and dashes out of the room, he goes into the cockpit, cracking open a can of green goo as he turns on the main view of his lion. Once he does, he regrets doing so. He sees that they are surrounded by toads. He jumps back a bit, startled. His heart is racing.   
"Uhh, Red why didn't you tell me we were surrounded by toads?" He whispers not wanting to wake up Lance again. Red stirs, telling him that he said not to put up a shield unless there was danger and since the toads are not dangerous, he didn’t do anything. Keith lets out an irritable sigh and turns away from the toads. "Lance! Get up! It's time to leave!!" He yells, Lance groans loudly and then lets out a scream.   
"Why are they surrounding us?!" He screams.   
"It's just toads!" Keith yells back sarcastically.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is also on Wattpad! Before every chapter I have a photo that helps "set the mood" it would mean bunches to me if you would check it out! Thank you for taking the time out of your day to read this.


	3. Dreaming of you

Keith and Lance are slowly drifting through space, deciding where to go, they've been aimlessly floating for a few hours now, they started to talk about what kind of planet they wanted to be on, when Lance suddenly turns off his giddy self and drops this on Keith.   
"Honestly, Keith, I really want to go home..." He mumbles, picking at his nails.   
"But Voltro-" Keith starts to protest but is cut off by Lance.   
"I know! I know! Voltron and the galaxy is first, I know that. I'm willing to give everything I have towards that. I just wish I told my family goodbye, y'know? I can't imagine how my parents are feeling. They all must think I'm dead..." Lance slouches down in his chair.   
"Maybe you could send them a message?" Keith offers in a more caring and gentle tone. Although Keith knows nothing about family, he has enough common sense to know it's a sensitive topic for people.   
"How? We don't have this kind of technology at home and it's not like I could just mail a letter!" Lance covers his face with his hands, obviously he has thought through this many, many times before. Keith shifts uncomfortably in his seat, the conversation between them gets tense, Keith doesn't know what to do or say. He's never seen Lance like this before.   
"Red, pull up the solar map." Keith states, he watches the bluish glow of the holographic map appear in front of him. He types in Earth. The map reloads and he's given a current photo of Earth, slowly spinning. "Lance....Where did you live on Earth, before the Garrison?"   
"It was in a small town called DeLong, it was near the ocean so it was mainly a fishing town...why?" Keith searches for "DeLong Beach" and is brought to a small town in America, next to the Gulf of Mexico, the waters are clear blue and the sand is white as snow.   
"It's midnight there, Lance. Your family is probably asleep, dreaming of you...." Lance doesn't respond, Keith keeps going, "It's winter time, December 13th to be exact." Keith swallows, hoping he isn't doing something bad here, "it's in the low sixties...it's raining." It's quiet for a while after that. Five minutes pass before Lance just takes off, Keith springs into actions and follows him. "Where are you going?!" He yells. Then, Lance does a nose dive to the closest planet, Keith's heart starts pounding into his ears, what is he doing?! What is he trying to do?! Keith has no other choice but to put his lion into a nose dive as well. They abruptly land on the planet's surface, this place looks like a scene out of a national geographic novel about the Amazon jungle.   
Keith can't stop and admire the beauty of it because Lance has already left his lion, Keith jumps out of his and lands in the small open field.   
"Lance!" He calls out, Lance faces him, then breaks out into a sprint towards him. Keith backs up a bit, he definitely did something wrong, Keith braces himself to be tackled to the ground and have the shit beaten out of him. Lance slams into Keith, embracing him as they fall back onto the luscious green grass below them. Lance hides his face in the crook of Keith's neck. Keith stiffens up, his arms awkwardly tucked to his sides.   
"I really hope they're dreaming about me and I wish they're happy d-dreams." Lance loses it at the end and he let's a few tears slip from his eyes, Keith feels his warm tears slide down his neck, he tries his best to hug him back. He holds his breath, and squeezes his eyes shut. He feels Lance's breath on his neck, his entire body breaks out in goosebumps, his heart hasn't stopped pounding in his ears. Lance raises up, supporting himself up above Keith with his hands. "What you said means a lot to me. Thank you." He smiles and gets off of Keith. He finally lets out his breath and sits up, he feels as if his entire body is on fire. He touches his chest to feel his pounding heart and then his neck, feeling the trace of Lance's tears.   
"Y'know this place is nice." Lance stands up, walking out in the field, "I'm glad the air is breathable too, we could've just died!" He laughs, back to his old smiling self again. Keith stands up and touches his red cheeks. He looks over at Lance, the sun is beating down on his tanned skin, his dark wavy brown hair shifts a bit in the wind. Keith walks up to him, he turns around and smiles, "This is a jungle right? So...they HAVE to have some kind of waterfall here!"   
"So?"   
"SO, that means we can finally take a shower. I'm getting sick of your greasy mop head!" Lance reaches out to mess up Keith's hair but he smacks it away, and moves away from him, killing the mood that was starting to form.   
Taking their bayards with them, they venture into the jungle with a small map Blue printed out for them to use. Keith slices down the vines and branches in front of them as Lance tells him the way, turning left and right, going back and then turning again, this happens for a while before Keith get annoyed, he spins around and yells,   
"Do you even know how to read a map?!" Keith snatches the map and it's literally just a drawing of two poorly drawn cats in red and blue marker and squiggly lines drawn to a waterfall in the middle of the page. Keith is dumbfounded, there is no way in hell that his lion made this for him, matter of fact....the lions can't give out maps of planets, only TO planets. He drops the map down to his side and stares at Lance for a moment, "You drew this, didn't you?"   
"No!" He crosses his arms and turns away.   
"Yeah, you did, it's obvious." Keith says back annoyed.   
"I just really want to take a shower and I know you won't go looking for a waterfall on a strange planet without some sort of map, so I made one up!" He tries to defend himself. Keith almost feels bad for him...almost. They're currently in the middle of some alien planet jungle surrounded by weird animals and planets, probably lost.   
"Let's just find our way back and I won't tell anyone about this." Keith pushes past Lance, following their trail back, Lance obediently follows him, his shoulders slumped over in defeat. Following back the twisting trail, this heat is really taking a toll on the both of them, Keith really wishes they did find a waterfall, his hair is starting to stick against his skin, his shirt is soaked in sweat, pressing against his pale skin, his torso now becoming visible. The sweatpants they have to wear are heavy on their legs and it feels like they're cooking alive. Just then, as if their wishes came true, both of them start hearing rushing water, Keith turns and looks at Lance to confirm they're hearing the same thing, with a single nod, Keith starts chopping through the thick brush as fast as he can.   
Popping out of the brush, and onto a small bank next to a pond with a huge waterfall, both of them drop their bayards, and start stripping. Lance runs and cannon balls into the ice cold water, Keith follows. Both in their boxers, they swim around in the refreshing water, scrubbing their hair under the waterfall to get out all the sweat and grease. Lance goes back to swimming around in the water as Keith stays under the waterfall, letting the heavy stream of water message his sore muscles. Keith eventually goes back into the deeper part of the pond and sits down in the water, the water comes up to his neck, like it was made specifically for him. Lance floats in the water, letting it take him wherever it wants. Keith watches him, his chest pokes out of the water, the sun reflects off the droplets of water on his exposed skin, his chest is broad and his collarbones stick out nicely. His skin is a warm color brown, like caramel milk chocolate, his hair is a dark brown, and his eyes are a beautiful blue. His smile, oh, his smile is so bright and comforting. He starts to wonder, does he taste as good as he looks?   
Keith stops, what was he just thinking? Chocolate? Caramel? Beautiful? TASTE AS GOOD AS HE LOOKS? Keith dunks his entire head under the water, holding his breath. What is wrong with him? Why is he thinking of Lance like this? Why now? He feels someone tap his head a few times, he brings his head out of the water and breathes out. He looks up at Lance, who looks a bit concerned.   
"You okay?" Lance tilts his head to the side, studying him. His long black hair his stuck against his bright pale skin. He messes up his hair, "You know, you really should cut your hair, it's getting pretty long, it'll start getting in the way in battle."   
"You just don't like it, you call me mullet-head all the time." His cheeks blush to a light pink.   
"That's true but still, it's getting long, at least trim it."   
"No." Keith throws himself back into the water, running his fingers through his hair, Lance watches, his black hair looks so soft.....he hears leaves crunching in the distance, Lance looks up, he scoots back from Keith, looking towards where the sound was coming from. The crunching sound get's louder...and louder....then out from the brush comes an alien...no, well, Lance and Keith would be the aliens on this planet. A local from this planet comes out of the bushes.   
She's tall, curvaceous, her body is green and her clothes are made out of vines and leaves that blend into her skin, so it's hard to tell whether it's her clothes or it's just her body. Lance doesn't know if his heart is beating out of his chest or has stopped, by this point, Keith has emerged back out of the water, now looking at the local as well. She steps into the water and flowers all over her body start to bloom.   
"Hey there~" Lance speaks up, Keith is immediately annoyed, does he have to flirt with every female he comes across? The woman looks over at them, curiosity filling her mind, she swims over to them, she goes up to Lance. Lance is practically drooling as she touches his face and lets out a purring sound. That bad feeling comes across Keith again, he watches the woman's actions closely. Then, the flowers on her body die. Keith jumps up and slams himself against the creature. Instead of the creature biting off Lance's face, it bites down on Keith's upper arm. Keith screams out in pain as he tackles the monster into the water, Lance scrambles back on shore and grabs his bayard, turning it into a gun. He can't see anything though, just water splashing and them switching who is on top. Lance's arms art to tremble, his hands are gripping his gun tightly, not knowing if he should shoot or not, if he risks it and shoots aimlessly, he could kill Keith but if he doesn't try to shoot, the creature could kill Keith...Lance starts to panic, he was about to jump into the water when, Keith flies up out of the water, his hands around her neck, he coughs and screams,   
"NOW!" Lance shoots and takes off the monster's head, he drops it's body into the water and goes back on shore. His arm is bleeding profusely, with thorns sticking out of every bite mark. Lance drops his weapon and starts plucking out the thorns as fast as he can. What if they're poisonous? They don't have anything to fix poison! Would that pink stuff help poison? What was that thing?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know these two chapters have been shorter than the first one, that one was to really set up the story so we can get towards the adventure! Plus, I don't want to overwhelm anyone who reads this. Thank you for reading.


	4. Saving the day...again

The world is spinning, again. Keith's head is spinning, he feels nauseous, he looks up at Lance, he's so blurry. Keith can see the worry on Lance's face as he falls forward.   
"Keith!" Lance catches him, all the color that was left in his pale face, drained out as he crashed against his chest. "Keith! Keith!" Lance continues to yell, he lifts up Keith's head to look him in the eyes, they're glazed over and blank, he's losing consciousness. "Keith, stay with me!" Keith tries to move away from Lance in some sort of way to show him he's okay, he wobbles back and falls back on the ground. He has to get him back to his lion, but they're both still in their underwear. Lance pulls on his pants and shirt, he grabs Keith's clothes and helps him get dressed. Putting on his shirt was easy, Keith didn't have to move; putting on his pants was a different story, pulling the thick fabric over Keith's wet legs was almost impossible, the fabric was sticking to his skin soaking up the water left on him. He pulls Keith back up to his feet, still unbalanced, he leans against Lance as he pulls his pants over his butt and onto his hips, struggling to do so.   
"You...you suck at this.." Keith mumbles out, still being defiant as ever. Keith grabs the waistband of his sweatpants and yanks up. Lance carefully sits him down and rushes to grab their shoes.   
"This is the only time I'll ever dress you, you hear?!" Lance pulls on his boots, he was about to help Keith pull on his when, Keith collapses back on the ground fading out finally, Lance rushes to him, slapping his face a bit, "Stay awake! Stay awake, Keith! Don't you-" Keith closes his eyes, Lance uses Keith's boot to catch some of the cold water from the pond and splash it on his face, his eyes shoot open. Lance grabs Keith by the shirt, bringing him up to press their foreheads together, "Don't you dare pass out on me." Keith nods, Lance turns around with his back facing Keith, "get on." 

Lance runs back through their twisting path through the jungle, cursing himself out for making that damn map. Damning himself for forcing him out here looking for a stupid fucking waterfall. Lance tied Keith's shoes together by the laces, he holds them by the laces in his mouth. He holds their bayards in either hand as he holds Keith up from behind. The strings of the boots are rubbing against the corners of his mouth making it extremely painful to hold, the weight of Keith's body on his back is slowing him down considerably. His hands are sweating, making it harder to hold onto Keith and their weapons at the same time. He jumps over roots and bushes, he ducks under branches and splashes through puddles of mud. His arms are on fire, he can't even feel his hands anymore. Keith's arms are limply hanging onto Lance's shoulders, Lance can feel the blood soak through Keith's shirt and onto his neck, it's like Lance's timer, the more blood he feels soak against him the closer he is to losing his friend. Lance swallows hard as he begins to see the small open field in the distance. He's so close, if he could only get them to Keith's lion, it should be right by the opening. Adrenaline pumping through every vein inside of him, Lance continues to run even if his knees feel like their breaking, he focuses on the exit, the so so so close exit. Sweat is pouring down his face, down his back, down his chest, the added heat from Keith's body isn't helping either. Lance gasps for air. He drops Keith's shoes.   
"SHIT." Lance screams as soon as they drop from his mouth, he tries to skid to a stop but he's going too fast, he trips over Keith's shoes and they fall in the mud. Not having the time to check if he hurt himself, he snatches up the mud covered shoes and places the laces back in his mouth, he goes back to Keith, his eyes are still open, but he's not really there. He scoops him up and slings him onto his shoulder and takes off once again. Both covered in mud head to toe, they emerge from the jungle only to be swallowed by Red immediately. Lance drops everything but Keith and rushes him to his emergency kits. He finds his medication cylinder, hands shaking, he unscrews the top, gets a pinch out, he opens Keith's mouth and sticks it in. Thank god that stuff dissolves on the tongue. He would have no idea how he would make him swallow in the state he's in now. Lance sits back and stares at him. Will it work? Lance's entire body is visibly shaking from adrenaline. Lance remembers when he took this stuff before it practically worked instantly, he pushes Keith's sleeve up and sees that the bite mark is slowly fading. The holes of every teeth mark close after the poison contained in them oozed out and dried up immediately. The only thing left of the wound was the dried up blood on Keith's arm, shirt and Lance's neck.   
He looks back at Keith's eyes, they're moving. Back and forth, slowly, he's getting his grip back on the world. "Say something." Keith squints at him, he places a hand on Lance's chest, his heart starts pounding even faster.   
"You're fucking filthy." He shoves him away from him.   
"THIS STUFF WORKS MIRACLES." Lance shouts, he snatches up the medicine and kisses the bottle over and over. Keith props himself up on the wall next to him, his body aching all over, he watches Lance act like an idiot, he smiles.   
"Thanks....Lance." Lance slowly turns around, surprised, he grins.   
"What was that? I didn't hear you."   
"Don't."   
"It's payback!!" Lance smiles. Keith notices the blood on his neck and what looks like burns at the corners of his mouth. He really went out of his way to save them, he looks down at his muddy clothes, he even dressed him.   
"Thank you..for saving my life." Keith says again.   
"That's twice now! Don't make it a habit, mullet!!" Lance shoots up, goes over to where he dropped their weapons and Keith's shoes. "How are you feeling?" Lance says on a more serious note.   
"Light headed but okay." Keith leans his head back on the wall, he looks towards Lance who tosses his shoes towards him along with his bayard. Keith reaches up and grabs his bayard.   
"You can sleep that off." Lance scratches the back of his head and sighs, "Look, I'm sorry."   
"Sorry?"   
"I made you go out there and look for a stupid waterfall and you got hurt."   
"And still filthy." Keith adds in, Lance looks at the ground, not knowing what to say, he almost got Keith killed over a stupid adventurous spark in him. "Look, you didn't know that was going to happen, neither did I, don't feel bad." Lance walks up to Keith, holds his hand out, Keith takes it and pulls himself up a little too fast. His head spins, he holds his head with his free hand and sways back a bit. Lance reaches out and wraps his arm around him.   
"Careful!" Keith was the first to acknowledge their position, hands clasped together, Keith pulled against Lance with Lance's arm wrapped around his lower back, Keith can feel his face heat up in embarrassment. Lance on the other hand, doesn't seem to notice or is it because he doesn't care? Keith pulls away and goes into his bed, laying down. He starts to mumble under his breath.   
"Stupid Lance and his caring personality, now I have to repay him, how? And what is this tight feeling in my stomach? This is twice now...no THREE times I've felt this...once when he hugged me after I told him about his family, when he was floating in the water, and then just now. Why does it connect back to him, why him? God dammit."   
"What are you going on about in there?" Lance calls out, with his mouth full of food.   
"Shut up! I'm sleeping!" Keith calls back, shoving his face into his pillow. 

 

"So you're telling me, you want to go BACK to the place where you almost died?" Lance crosses his arms, staring at Keith like he's lost his mind. Both of them are covered in dried blood, sweat and mud.   
"We're filthy, my bed is covered in dirt! I can't stand it! When will we come across another chance at a shower?" Keith protests, pulling on his shoes, willing to go back with or without Lance.   
"I don’t know, maybe at the next planet or when Allura finds us!!" Lance throws his arms up in the air.   
"I'm going." Keith grabs his bayard and jumps out of his lion.   
"I can't believe this guy." Lance grabs his bayard and jumps out after him. "I'm not letting you go alone!!" Lance runs up to Keith. They walk quietly through their path once more, back to the pond, Keith gets under the waterfall, fully clothed. Washing himself and his clothes. After a few moments of Lance watching and deciding whether he wants to join or not, he gets in.   
Keith runs his fingers through his hair, cleaning out chunks of mud until a finds a chunk matted into his hair right by the nape of his neck, he tries to scrub it out, to detangle it.   
"You're making it worse." Lance swats away Keith's hands and takes his turn to scrape out the mud. After a few minutes he falters, "So....uh...this isn't budging...."   
"What do I do? I don't have a brush!" Lance looks down at the now dark looking water, his eyes trail up to the bank, he sees their bayards.   
"Isn't your bayard a sword?" He asks.   
"Yeah but- no no no no!" Keith holds the nape of his neck with both hands.   
"It's all we got."   
"No."   
"It'll only get worse and if it gets worse, even more will have to go, you don’t want to be bald do you?" Lance places his hands on his hips, Keith shakes his head and goes back on shore. He reluctantly gets his sword out and is about to cut his hair himself when Lance stops him. "Wait! Wait! Let me do it! I can see where I make the cut!"   
"You'll cut it too short!!"   
"Trust me!" Lance holds his hand out and Keith gives him his sword nervously. Lance takes the longer part of Keith's hair, he places the edge of the sword right underneath the matted hair and quickly cuts it off. Now his hair only a few inches shorter, Keith feels like his neck his extremely exposed. Lance smirks, he has waited so long to see that mullet die. He tries his best to suppress his laughter, Keith turns around and takes his sword.   
"Do I look bad?" Keith asks nervously, Lance steps back and takes a good look at him. At the bottom of his stomach he starts to feel a fluttery sensation, Keith with normalish hair, the front is a bit long though. Lance reaches out and fixes a few strands, honestly, he looked pretty good, cute even?   
"You look fine, the front is a little long compared to the back but it'll grow back." Lance shrugs.   
"Thanks.." Keith rubs the back of his head, he hasn't had his hair this short since he was in the Garrison.   
"Let's get back to our lions, it's getting really dark." Keith nods, leading the way. Lance can't help but to stare at his hair, how it suits him, how it really shows his age.   
"Come to think of it..." Keith speaks up, catching his attention.   
"What?"   
"Remember that awful drink Coran had at that party we threw for the people back on Arus?"   
"How could I forget it?" He cringes at the thought of the taste.   
"Didn't Coran say it helps hair grow? Maybe I can get him to make me some when we get back to the ship!" Keith smiles to himself, knowing he won't have to deal with this hair for long, or at least he think so. Lance slumps his shoulders, staring at the back of his head for a bit.   
"I think this look is fine." Lance huffs and crosses his arms

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, it'll grow back. Thank you for reading this today.


	5. Looking for answers in the starry night

"Shiro! Shiro! Are you okay?!" Allura yells as she runs down the long entrance way of the ship, she rushes towards Shiro, and he runs towards her.  
"Yes, yes I'm good! Where's everyone else??" He looks past Allura and only sees Coran running up in the distance.  
"You're the first we found." She clasps her hands in front of her and looks down, "We've gone in and out of Pidge's location, we've only gotten three messages from Lance and we know Keith is with him and well..."  
"Those two claim to have wrecked the Red Lion!!" Coran speaks up.  
"They what." Annoyance and anger spreads across Shiro's face. He sighs knowing he can't do anything about it, "What about Hunk?"  
"Nothing at all, sadly." Allura looks up at him, she can see the worry in his face. He's already lost one crew, he'll be damned if he loses another. He walks past them, going towards the main control.  
"Let's find them." Shiro says in a now even more determined tone. 

 

\--------------------------------- 

"LANCE RISE AND SHINE!!!" Keith yells, Lance groans and rolls over in his bed. "DON'T MAKE ME COME OVER THERE! WE GOT A DISTRESS CALL!!" Keith pulls on one leg of armor.  
"What kind of distress call?"  
"I dunno, just a distress call on a nearby planet, it could be Hunk, Pidge or Shiro! Get Up!"  
"I'm up, I'm up..." He rolls out of bed, he stretches and starts putting his armor on. "It better not be a fake distress call, I don't want to be tied to a tree again!!" He whines.  
"Then don't flirt with every female alive and you wouldn't have that problem." Keith says back with a bit more angst than he meant to put in it.  
"Mad that I'm more popular with the girls?" Lance smirks.  
"Just get ready." Keith rolls his eyes and pulls on his helmet. 

They fly over to where the distress call is coming from, which is closer to a star than they are bit comfortable with. They land down on another desert-like planet. Nearby is a pretty badly wrecked ship, not a lion as they hoped, just a fighter jet.  
"This place is familiar..."Keith mumbles, referring to the first planet they were on a few weeks ago.  
"That ship looks familiar..." Lance checks the oxygen percentage on the planet, breathable.  
"Come to think of it...it does?" Keith grabs his bayard and jumps off his lion, alert just in case this is fake. Lance jumps out of his lion, he looks towards the wreckage.  
"Let's get this over with." He starts walking towards the smoking ship, Keith follows. Coming up on the wrecked ship, they spot a really young looking kid laying among the wreckage. "Hey, are you okay?!" Lance yells, running up to the small boy on the ground, Keith stays back drawing out his sword, looking around. Why is there only a small kid laying here? This is some kind of trick...a kid that small couldn't be flying a fighter jet like that. "Keith...."  
"Doesn't this seem weird?" He says back.  
"Keith! Look!" Keith looks over at Lance who is pointing at the fighter jet. "That’s a Garrison jet." Keith walks up to the jet and sees the serial number. Next to that was, "Garrison" printed out on the side.  
"Shit, do you think this kid stole it?"  
"I don't know but he's really beaten up..."  
"Think he'll be okay?" Keith places his hands on his knees and looks down at the unconscious kid. He couldn't be more than 12 years old.  
"I mean he doesn't seem to be bleeding really bad...just knocked out."  
"I guess, we'll wait until he wakes up." Keith and Lance move the kid away from the wreckage but not too close to the lions, in case things turn sour. They start a fire to keep warm as the sun goes down. Slowly, one by one, stars start to sprinkle the sky. Yet again, Lance is staring up at the sky, scanning it back and forth, looking, waiting. This time, Keith joins him, the stars light up the entire sky, there's even bits of color here and there from forming galaxies. It reminds Keith of nights back at the desert shack on Earth. On nights he couldn't sleep, he would stare up at the sky, looking for some sort of answer. What was he supposed to do now after leaving the Garrison? What did he have left after being kicked out the most prestigious flight school on Earth? What was his purpose? He doesn't really question things like that anymore, he feels as if he's found his calling, he finally has something to call his own. Keith looks back down at the kid, to check to see if he's still breathing, he is, slowly, deeply.  
"Y'know, I was thinking..." Lance speaks up, he clears his throat a bit, "this kid is so young, he probably could barely control that jet and...well, maybe...maybe we are closer to Earth than we think?" Keith looks up at Lance. "I haven't checked the maps of where we are to where Earth is, I kinda given up on...going home...but this kid, maybe we're closer." Lance locks his eyes with Keith's, the intensity of his gaze sends shivers down Keith's spine.  
"When the kid...wakes up, we could..we could ask him how far he flew." Keith looks away from Lance feeling his face heat up a bit.  
"Man, what if we are close...I could surprise my mom! I could be the best Christmas gift ever!!" Lance smiles looking back up at the sky, he imagines the joy on his mother's face when he finally walks through the front door. Then seeing his dad and his siblings. He concentrates on the stars above him, pretending they're the ones back home and when he looks back to where he's sitting, he'll be sitting on the soft green grass in his backyard.  
"I think he's waking up." Keith stares at the boy laying on the ground across from them. His head moves back and forth, he groans a bit before he opens his eyes. Lance tears his eyes away from the sky and looks over at the kid, feeling a little disheartened after his daydream didn't come true.  
"Hey, you okay?" Lance asks the kid, the kid looks over at Lance, his eyes widen in shock, he jumps away from them and screams.  
"You! You're!" The kid points at Lance.  
"He's?" Keith asks.  
"He's supposed to be dead!" He points at Lance as he yells that at Keith, Keith raises an eyebrow, confused, "You're one of the students that went missing a few months ago!" he turns his gaze to Lance.  
"Yeah, I am."  
"What're....how are you?!" The kid stutters  
"I was too good for that place, I'm a paladin for Voltron now!" Lance smirks, crossing his arms.  
"Vol-what?"  
"Kid, that's not the problem here...can you tell us what happened?" Keith speaks up.  
"I was flying my ship and I wrecked that's all!"  
"So, this is your ship?" Keith crosses his arms, not believing him.  
"Yes!" He looks over at the wrecked jet and cringes a bit at the sight of it.  
"We know it's a Garrison fighter jet." Lance buts in. The boy slumps his shoulders down, he looks down at the ground knowing he's been caught.  
"I stole it...I wanted to run away just like Lance, Hunk and Pidge did. I don't like the Garrison." The boy mumbles.  
"Why not just drop out?" Keith asks.  
"Running away on a jet like that is dangerous!" Lance scolds him.  
"I can't drop out! My father is one of the captains at the Garrison, and if I drop out, he'll disown me." He looks back up at Lance, "Can't I just join that Voltron thing with you guys?!"  
"Voltron...you see, isn't just a club for anyone, they pick you." Lance gestures over at the two lions nearby, the boy looks over at the giant robotic lions, his eyes widen, his face lights up.  
"You have transformers?!" He smiles and looks back at Lance.  
"Wait, did you just call Blue, A TRANSFORMER?!!"  
"Well....Lance, technically they do transform into Voltron." Keith adds in, Lance looks over at Keith in disbelief.  
"No, Blue is NOT a transformer. Kid, when you stole the jet..." Lance stops for a second, a little afraid to ask the question, in fear he'll be disappointed, "How long did you fly before you crashed?"  
"Uhhh...." He looks into the fire for a few seconds determining his answer. He looks back up at Lance, "about thirty minutes? But I was going really fast the entire time. Why?" Lance looks over at Keith, who returns his gaze, Keith will never forget the look on Lance's face. The hope embedded into his eyes, the way his entire face lit up in happiness. He mouths Keith's name, a small smile appears on his face. Yet again, Keith's body is covered in goosebumps, his heart is racing and his face feels so warm. Could these feelings he's having mean something more?  
"We could drop him back off on Earth, it can't be that far!" Lance smiles at Keith.  
"Taking him anywhere on our lions is out of the question." Keith knows for a fact Lance is trying to make up an excuse to go to Earth. Lance looks away Keith, sticking his bottom lip out in a small pout. Keith's face darkens to another shade of red at the adorable sight, "we could notify the Garrison where he is."  
"Oh yeah, they're gonna listen to a drop out and a kid that's missing and probably declared dead." Lance rolls his eyes.  
"Yeah! Plus they would try to take Lance back! Then your Voltrain-"  
"Voltron." Keith corrects.  
"Voltron, will be disbanded! So better not call them!" The boy takes Lance's side.  
"You just don't want to go back, which you are, space isn't safe for kids like you." Keith snaps back at him.  
"Who even are you?" The boy says in a mean and demeaning tone. Keith grits his teeth, annoyed.  
"He's the guy who picked up your distress signal and got us out here! Show respect!" Lance scolds him, it wasn't his usual annoyed yell, like the one he uses on Keith but one more serious. The boy shrinks a little, going back into his shy demeanor. "I'll try to get a hold of the Garrison." Lance mumbles, he gets up and starts walking towards his lion. A tense, awkward silence falls between the two left by the fire. The crackling and popping of the wood is the only sound for a few minutes. Keith wonders how long it'll take for Lance to get a hold of the Garrison and how long it'll take for them to get out here. The fire they made from one of their emergency kits is slowly dying out, he doesn't want to waste another log if they come sooner than he thinks.  
"I...I can't go back." The boy jumps up.  
"What? You have to." Keith looks up, the boy just shakes his head and breaks out in a run. "Shit." Keith grabs his helmet, puts it on, grabs his bayard and chases after him. "Hey, Lance! He's running off!!" Keith shouts into his helmet. He chases the small boy across the rocky terrain. The boy slides down into a crater, "shit shit shit, he went into a crater!"  
"Go after him, I can vaguely see you, so I know where I'm going. Just go!" Lance yells back. Keith curses under his breath one more time before sliding down into the crater. Hitting the bottom, he waves the smoke out of his face and coughs, he scans the crater around him, looking for the small boy. He spots him, that ugly orange and white suit every student has to wear in the Garrison sticks out like a sore thumb. He runs towards him, only seeing the outline of the orange on the suit suddenly fall to the ground in a very unnatural way, Keith picks up his pace. It's really hard to see, he tries to squint his eyes but it's no use, he's practically blind down here.  
"Are you at the crater yet, Lance? I think something happened to the kid." Keith huffs out.  
"Crater?-AHHH!" That's a yes.  
"Are you okay?"  
"Is he okay?!" Lance says back. Keith is about to complain that he can't see when suddenly the glass across his eyes turns into night vision and he sees just the boy's clothes crumpled up on the ground.  
"I only found his clothes?" Keith says back, picking up the suit, once he does, this massive amount of black ash falls onto the ground, Keith drops the suit and jumps back.  
"His clothes?"  
"L-Lance..." Keith stutters out.  
"I’m running up behind you now, what is it?"  
"I...I don't think we're alone." Keith draws his sword, looks around.  
"Why do you think that?" Lance finally catches up to Keith, he sees the ash and the clothes on the ground. Lance feels his heart sink. Is the boy...? Lance pulls out his gun and puts his back against Keith's. Both of them scared, trembling even. What did this? Where is it? "We have to get out of here..." Lance whispers.  
"I know that...." Keith whispers back, out of the corner of Keith's eye he sees something fly past really quick, he snaps his head over to the side to see what it was. Then, out of the corner of his opposite eye, he sees the same thing again, he looks that way.  
"A-are you seeing this?"  
"Is it one that's really fast or more than one?" He asks, Lance swallows.  
"Whichever is worst, probably and I can't decide which one is...." Lance turns his head to the side and in the distance, a tall, black looming creature stands still. It has to be at least six and a half feet tall. It slowly lifts it's head up, smiling, showing its long, blood red teeth. Every tooth is sharp and jagged. Lance is paralyzed in fear, the huge creature starts walking towards him. It's arms hang low, almost down to it's knees, it's broad shoulders swing back and forth as it moves, like an ape would.  
"Th-there's one coming at me.." Keith whispers. Lance's stomach drops, there's two of them. "Was this the thing that killed...I didn't even get his name." Keith is slapped with guilt, he can't believe he didn't ask for the kid's name. Keith then is washed over in anger, he charges at the dangerous creature.  
"Ke-Keith!" Lance yells and glances over his shoulder just to see Keith take his creature head on. Lance looks back at his opponent, it's now running at him. He takes a few shots, missing once and getting the next two in it's stomach. It howls in pain, the other one responds and it's attacks become more violent with an intent to kill, not to harm. Keith dodges them left and right, for what the creature has in height and bulk, it lacks in agility. All those hours training with the Gladiator back on the Altean ship is really paying off now. He parries against the creatures arm, shoving the creature back a bit but not enough to get out of the creature long striking range. It swings back around with it's other arm, Keith tries his best to block its attack again but this time he's the one knocked back.  
Lance on the other hand is keeping distance from his creature. Every time he shoots it, it doesn't slow down or even falters in the slightest. There's only one place he hasn't shot yet, in its' head. Lance allows the thing to get closer and closer until it's right on top of him. He shoots, his laser goes right through his head and not only does its' head explode but its' entire body explodes. Blood, guts, organs, bones, flesh splatter all over the place. Lance backs up, instinctively putting up his shield to avoid the guts he thought would only come from its' head. He turns around and looks over at Keith, he's still fighting his. Neither are taking dominance. He's never going to win with a sword. Lance runs up, just as Keith takes another blow from the creature, he easily blocks it and pushes it off. The creature saw Lance come up but Keith didn't. So as the creature swung with it's left arm, Keith ducked, Lance ran up. He pointed the gun up at the creature's head, taking a shot. Keith sees the arm swinging towards an unsuspecting Lance. Keith jumps back up, taking the hit right against his side just as the laser goes through its' head. Keith is slammed against Lance and they both fall to the ground.  
Keith lands right on top of Lance, laying on his side, Keith looks up at the creature as it explodes, not expecting the whole thing to explode. Keith holds up his hand to shield himself from the gore. Lance shoots up, putting his shield up as the wet slapping of flesh and blood slam against it. Keith stares at the blood sloshing down in front of him. He's mortified, he can't take his eyes off of it. His stomach turns, he's going to vomit. Lance places his hand over Keith's visor.  
"Don't watch if it grosses you out, dumbass." Lance mumbles. Keith is well aware that he's currently sitting between Lance's legs and is extremely aware that Lance is protecting him physically and mentally right now. Keith doesn't move, he doesn't say anything either. Lance lowers his shield and hand, "well we should get back to the ship and take that suit with us...the Garris-" he's cut off by a hug from Keith.  
"Thank you." Lance hugs him back, their armor clanking against each other. Keith wishes their armor wasn't there, he wants a real hug from Lance, one where he can feel his chest against his, where he could feel his heartbeat, to assure him that this is real. That this hug is happening, this, warm, fluttering feeling in his stomach was the source of Lance's touch not just because he's saved him once again. Keith closes his eyes, letting the feeling in the pit of his stomach consume him, letting it rise up to his chest and down his arms. Letting his fingers and toes tingle in this feeling. Whatever this feeling was, he doesn't know it but oh god is it intoxicating. Keith doesn't want to let go, he wants to stay right here, to live in this moment, to live in this feeling forever.  
"You don't have to thank me, it's what a good team does. I'm always gonna protect you!" Lance smiles, Keith pulls away, kind of embarrassed for how long he hugged him, "Anyways, we need to get that suit and get back to the lions."  
"Right." Keith nods. They pick up the boy's suit, and shoes. Instead of walking all the way back to the lions, once they flew out of the crater, they called Red and Blue over to them. Getting in their lions they go back over to their small campsite and put up a tracking signal for the Garrison to find.  
"I'm no Hunk but this has to work." Lance steps back and turns on the device.  
"So, it's sending it's location to the Garrison every thirty seconds?" Keith asks.  
"It should be, so, they can find...him and we can get out of here without them figuring out it's us." Lance walks back to Blue. Keith stands there for a moment, staring at the boy's clothes. He couldn't find a name tag or anything relating to what his name could possibly be, and it's slowly eating away at Keith. "Hey," Lance calls out, Keith turns around and looks at him, "the sun is coming up, the next planet awaits!"  
"Let's hope for that feast." Keith smiles.  
"Now you're talking!" Lance grins and runs into Blue. Keith looks over at the boy's things, and the little memorial they built for him here.  
"See ya, kid."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bit cheesy? oh well. Thank you for reading.


	6. A petal falling never to bloom again...

"Here." Lance hands over a can of that green space goo to Keith, "finish it off for me." Keith takes it, picking up the spoon and starts to eat the last third in the can. After last night's terror, they went to a neighboring planet that both of their lions scanned as peaceful. Keith tried to sleep off the stress of last night only to have nightmares of those creatures exploding in his face again. He's been wondering how Lance was holding up, considering he was being quieter than usual. After a few attempts of contacting Lance through his lion, and him not responding, he storms out of his lion a little annoyed until he sees Lance in the distance, sitting in the long grassy field surrounded by flowers. Keith's heart sped up, his stomach started to flutter and his knees were weak. He started to walk up to Lance, the wind was blowing, making the grass have a wave like look to them in the distance. Lance was looking down at his lap, oblivious to Keith walking up behind him. As he got closer and closer, he noticed a small pile of flowers and grass laid a little bit in front of Lance, was he picking flowers? Why? How....innocent? Charming?  
"Hey, what's up?" Keith finally speaks up, sitting down next to him. Lance scrambles about for a second before hiding something in his lap and kicking the flowers in front of him away.  
"N-nothing!" His cheeks are red, he looks the opposite way of Keith. Keith raises an eyebrow unconvinced, he tugs at his arm.  
"Let me see!" He pulls on his arm again, pulling Lance towards him. Soon enough they're wrestling on the ground, Keith pins Lance down and peels open his hands. Lance gives up, he accepts the fact Keith is going to make fun of him and he'll never live this down. Keith smiles, he holds up the crumpled and torn flower crown (you can thank the wrestling for that.) He almost laughs until he looks down at Lance. He's hiding his face with his arms, he's obviously embarrassed. He drops the flower crown on to the ground, "It's charming that you of all people know how to make one of those." Keith easily pulls Lance's arms from his face. He doesn’t know why he's not teasing him or why Lance gave up so easily on their fight, all he knows is making of him wouldn't of been right.  
The wind blows again, making the grass hush and the flowers dance. Their hair is blown from their faces, both of them stare at each other in a few seconds of awe. Keith stunned by Lance's beautiful blue eyes, he looks so beautiful laying in the grass, surrounded by flowers he's never seen before. Lance is confused about why seeing Keith's blushing face is so adorable and why having Keith straddle him, but not touch him, ache for him to come closer. Keith gets off of Lance and picks up the flower crown.  
"It...I used to make these with my little sister, at first it was because she dragged me out one day so she could try to make one. She wanted to use the flowers at the park near our house, she wasn't allowed to go alone so, she made me take her." Lance picks up some other picked flowers and starts tying them together, "after that, whenever she was upset about something, I could always find her at that park, making these damn things." He laughs, quickly and efficiently making knots with the pieces the grass around him, then tying the flowers in and around that, "I was always better than her at this...." Lance smiles, he feels an emptiness in his chest, he misses her, they always fought but right now, Lance feels if he ever got to see her again, he would never argue over petty things with her ever again.  
"You really miss them all, don't you?" Keith watches Lance's fingers, he tries to copy him, picking up some flowers, he tries to tie them together, but he keeps ripping the stems off. He frowns, he keeps trying and trying until he feels something placed on his head. He freezes, his face blushes red.  
"he put the freaking crown on my head, he put it on my head! Wha..." Keith thinks to himself, he looks up at Lance, he's smiling. Keith swallows, his fingers are trembling a bit, what does he do in a situation like this? He's never been in a situation like this, why does he feel like this?  
"You're....You're really...blushing." Lance drops his smile, he's so serious, what happened to his suave when it comes to flirting? Is this flirting? Lance doesn’t know, he was just putting what he made to use, Keith is acting really weird....Lance's stomach ties up in knots, he looks away from Keith, he tries to find something else to talk about, he spots the can of that green space goo and gives it to Keith. He finishes off the goo and places the can down, leaving the crown on his head.  
"So when you were sleeping...I looked up where Earth is to us...and if we fly at a moderate pace..." Lance starts picking at the grass in front of him, "I can't believe the odds myself but time in space and time on Earth is vastly different, even if a few days ago when you checked the date and time there. Weeks have passed for them."  
"What day is it?"  
"Well I didn't check that, I checked our arrival day...if we went." Lance sighs, his breath is shaky, he knows they should be looking for their friends and the Altean ship, fighting the Galra and making the galaxy a better place. Then again, he doesn't know when he'll have another opportunity to see his family again. He closes his eyes, "If we went by this planet's sunrise tomorrow, and went at the correct speed, Keith...Before I was joking about being a "Christmas gift"." He turns to Keith, placing his hand on his upper arm, "If we left tomorrow morning, I could actually be there for Christmas."  
"Lance, I don't want to crush your dreams but, Pidge, Hunk, Shiro, Allura and Coran. They were in that wormhole too, they could be hurt. I know our scans and our messages haven't been working but we can't give up and..." Keith doesn't know how to say this without hurting Lance, this is going to hurt him, he knows it, "and have some kind of vacation."  
"Vacation...."Lance repeats softly, "let me be blunt with you Keith." Lance's soft and hopeful expression vanishes into a harsh one, "I don't know whether I'm going to die today or tomorrow. I don't know if I'll ever be this close to my family again; to my home again." He crushes the flowers in his hand, "This trip I want to take to Earth is not going to be some fucking Vacation, I’m basically wanting to go say my goodbyes to the people that actually love and care about me." Lance stands up, he stares towards the fields and fields of flowers. "I have to look my mother, my father, my entire family in the eyes and pretend like everything is fine, JUST to walk out my front door one last time knowing I will probably never see them again."  
"I'm sorry Lance, I.."  
"Don't you fucking dare think this trip I want to take is some fun vacation." He looks down on Keith, his eyes watering up, Keith stands up, still holding his torn apart attempt at a flower crown, "Don't you have someone you want to see? Someone you want to see smile one more time before the inevitable?"  
"No...I don't h-"  
"Then stop thinking I’m some slack off kid that doesn't know the gravity of the situation I'm in." Lance kicks over the can and heads back to his ship.  
"I'll....I'll think it over!" Keith calls out, Lance doesn't say anything. He watches Lance get on to his lion, he sits back down in the grass, his chest hurts. For some reason Lance yelling at him tore at his heart. He pulls up his knees and rests his head on them, he closes his eyes and starts to think. He evaluates how much of their searching would be put back by this trip, he considers the possibility that Lance won't want to leave his family and having to drag him out, he also considers that they both might get caught by the Garrison, and how their lions will not go unnoticed on Earth. Time passes, he's laying down in the grass, looking up at the now setting sky. The beautiful colors mixing above him put him in a very nostalgic mood. He lets his mind drift back to easier times, his desert shack, his time in the Garrison...from there he thinks about meeting all of his current friends, Shiro, Pidge, Hunk, Allura, Coran and of course Lance.  
He will remember these past few weeks with Lance forever, even though they're just drifting about, getting into trouble now and then, he's had some fun, he's seen some amazing things, even some scary things. He's also felt new things, with this thought, his mind wanders on to Lance and these feelings he has for him. He rubs one of the petals between his fingers from the flower crown Lance made for him, the crown is laying on his chest, he took it off when he laid back, not wanting to crush it. Lance has saved him so many times, he's always been the laughter in his life even if something wasn't that funny. Lance is also really smart, he got into the best space flight school on Earth so that has to mean something, he also made at receiver so the Garrison could find that boy's things. He's tough too, getting through that crash unharmed, carrying Keith on his back through that jungle planet.  
This butterfly feeling in his gut whenever Lance is around, that weird overwhelming sensation when Lance touches him or does something meaningful for him. Keith is starting to doubt this is just a friendly liking of someone, it's not even admiration, he has feelings for Lance. A crush.  
"I have a crush on Lance...Lance of all people..." He thinks to himself, maybe it's not all that bad? It's just a crush, those can fade away, right? He can just live with having one until his fades away. Keith gets up finally, picking up the can and spoon Lance knocked over and goes back to his lion. He sits down in his command chair and makes a video, he whispers, so Lance, who is hopefully asleep, doesn't hear him.  
"So, tomorrow morning, Lance and I are going to Earth. Lance looked up where Earth was to us and it's really close!" He clears his throat, trying not to be too loud, "which explains the lack of Galra activity around us, if we're close to Earth that means the Galra hasn't infiltrated this part of the galaxy yet, we lucked out on that....anyway, I'll send my location even though we'll be leaving first thing In the morning." He turns off the message and sends it. 

 

\----------------------  
"Allura! Shiro! I've just gotten a HUGE amount of video messages from the Blue AND Red lion!" Coran announces, as he runs into the infirmary. Within one of the pods, Pidge is healing, slowly but surely.  
"Show us!" Allura jumps up and runs out after Coran, with Shiro close behind.  
"There's about fourteen messages from each!"  
"Play the most recent." Shiro nods towards the controls. Coran goes to the most recent message, he presses play. Keith appears on the huge screen in front of them, he's holding flowers in his hand, his hair is shorter and he looks like he's discovered something amazing.  
"So, tomorrow morning, Lance and I are going to Earth....." He goes on to talk. It ends and the screen goes black and his location pops up.  
"When was this?!" Shiro turns to Coran, Coran's face falters a bit, he looks down for a moment before looking Shiro in the eyes and says,  
"Three months ago."  
Three? They could be across the solar system by now! Shiro clenches his fists, "We'll keep looking." He starts to walk out of the main control room.  
"Don't you want to see the other videos?" Allura asks calmly.  
"No, I want to be there when Pidge wakes up." Shiro lets the doors close behind him and he disappears down the hall. Allura and Coran continue to watch the other videos, they're mostly of them arguing and laughing. They learn about the Venus fly trap attack and the boy and the creatures. They also learn about every small planet they've been to and little adventures here and there. Allura smiles, she's glad they've kept up their usual disposition and that all this struggling hasn't torn them apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title of this chapter is actually from a tattoo I have on my arm, there's a second part to it and I plan on making it a title of a chapter as well. So, i'll surprise you then. I came up with the idea to this chapter a bit before I started writing this story...it'll have a interesting parallel, just like the title will. Also! I edited some bits in chapter 5! I uploaded that chapter when I was super sleepy, it's just a few grammatical errors. And as always, Thank you for taking time out of your day to read this!


	7. Then don't say goodbye

"Red, connect to Blue." Keith calls out, Red connects himself to Blue, opening the walkway into Blue's entrance way. Keith walks in, and checks Lance's bed, he's not there. He sighs and goes into the cockpit. Lance is sitting in his command chair, his legs hanging over one side, his head leaning over the other. He looks over at Keith and looks away.  
"Did you think about it?" He sits up in his chair and leaning forward on his knees.  
"Yeah, I did..." There's a tense pause between the two before Keith says, "I think we should go." Lance's eyes widen, he jumps up and faces Keith.  
"Really?"  
"Really..." Keith rubs the back of his neck and looks away.  
"What is it?"  
"This is going to be really hard on you and I'm sorry I hurt your feelings yesterday..."  
"It's okay, really. I overreacted to be honest." Keith doesn't know how to respond to that, he feels as if he was being too cold to Lance yesterday and he had every right to be mad. Keith doesn't have a family, he doesn't know what it's like to have that connection with someone, that powerful family bond. When Keith was younger he would fantasize about having a huge family and being covered in love every day but, Keith isn't a child anymore and he has accepted the fact that he is alone.  
"We should get going." Keith speaks up, Lance nods with a huge smile on his face. Keith walks back into his lion and gets into his command chair. Both boys are wearing just the spare clothes kept in the cargo area, there's no need to wear their armor to Earth, it's still a peaceful place to be, occasionally.  
Both lions are on auto pilot as they soar through space, Keith is wrapped up in his blanket from his bed, curled up in his command chair, he's looking at Lance through the video feed on his main controls, Lance has been talking Keith's ear off about his family. Keith doesn't mind, he finds it oddly comforting, the way Lance can describe each family member to him in clear detail. His mother has really curly brown hair, and to keep it out of her face, she clips a chunk back with a brass clip that was given to her by her mother, his, what he calls, abuelita. When he talks about his father, his eyes fill up with admiration, he's hoping he's as tall as his dad now and he won't call him, "Hijito" anymore. Which bluntly translates to "sonny" in English.  
"I didn't know you spoke Spanish, you don't have an accent of any kind."  
"I only know a few words, only my abuelita and abuelito is fluent in it." He blushes. Keith likes the slight tint of red that appeared on Lance's cheeks when he was complimented or talked about in a nice way. Keith laid his head against his armrest, now laying completely down in his chair, he continues to listen to Lance as he talks about his brother and sister. The games they used to play when they were little, and how Lance was always getting the "shit end of the stick" when it came to doing chores. He was the youngest of three and he was babied by his parents. From there he talked about his aunts and uncles. His voice starts to become soothing to Keith, he didn't care about what was to come. He didn't want to think about where to hide their lions once they got on Earth and he didn't want to ask Lance if he wanted him to stay with him as he had his reunion with his family. All he wanted was to listen to Lance talk about his childhood, all the toys he had and all the days he spent on the beach, he wanted to know about all the funny and cute things he did when he was little. He would kill to see Lance's baby photos, he smiles to himself as he imagines little Lance trying to flirt with the other little girls at the park or pretending to be a space cadet in his backyard or a scuba diver as he swam in the ocean.  
"Hey, should I wear my armor when I show up?" Lance changes the subject, Keith looks up at him.  
"No, don't want to shock them all at once." He sits up, readjusting the blanket around him, Lance watches as Keith checks their location and other various things. The red glow around him gives his skin a warm pink tint. It's so much prettier than when he first found him laying in that command chair, covered in blood, the lights flashing around them. He smiles, his heart feels as if its swelling up, he can't stop thinking about home. He's finally going home, the place where he grew up and the place where he wants to grow old. Home, love bursting through the cracks of every door frame and corner. Even though they fight a lot and tease one another, it's still home, it's still filled with love.  
"What about our lions? Where do I keep Blue?" Keith looks over at Lance at the corner of his eye, his face is a little fuzzy due to the video reception, he looks away, his lips slightly parted open in thought and he looks up at the screen once more. Lance's heart skips a beat at that little eye movement, it was..hot? Adorable even. He shakes his head and waits on his response.  
"Remember where we found Blue? Maybe we can store them in that cave and put their shields up."  
"Then how am I going to get home?"  
"Maybe, my jet is still by the shack. We can use that and if not, we could hide your lion and I drop you off?"  
"That could work..." Lance trails off, he was kind of hoping Keith would go with him so he could meet his family, although, he would feel out of place, and plus his family will be all over him and Keith would be left out. Lance wonders, does Keith have a family? Is there someone he's wanting to see? He sure hasn't said anything if he does. Maybe he just doesn't want to talk about it. Lance leans back in his chair and looks out the front view of his lion. The stars around them are flying by now, meaning they're closer to Earth. Anticipation starts building up between the two. Lance's hands are shaking, his whole body is pumping with adrenaline. He can't wait, he's so close to home. They circle the beautiful blue and green planet a few times as they pin down on where they want to land. Keith types in the coordinates of the desert their adventure began in; they quickly start to descend on to the planet, ripping through the clouds and atmosphere as they fly into the cave where they found Blue. Both of them land and get out.  
Lance jogs out of his lion, he turns around and salutes Blue, "I'll be back soon, buddy!" He smiles and turns back towards the cave, the nostalgia is pounding down on them both. The Garrison, Keith's shack, finding Shiro, helping Hunk make his little machine to help find Blue, Pidge leading the group to this very spot until Lance touched the markings on the wall and he found his lion. For Keith and Lance that only happened a few weeks ago but on Earth, it's been half a year since they went missing. Lance breaks out in a run as he climbs his way out of the cave. Both of them with bags on their backs, containing their armor and for Keith, small rations of food. Keith follows Lance out of the cave and into the intense cold of the desert night.  
"Jeez, I thought it was supposed to be hot in the desert?!" Lance looks back at Keith as he walks out of the cave, "what time is it, anyway?"  
"Two am." Keith looks at sky, spotting the big dipper constellation, doing some quick calculations in his head, he comes up with a rough estimate.  
"How the hell can you tell by the stars?!" Lance looks up, looking back and forth.  
"Don't stress your small brain over this, let's get back to my shack before the coyotes get you." He smirks and walks ahead of Lance. He knows this desert like the back of his hand, he navigates easily through the dark that's until he hears Lance call out,  
"K-Keith where are you?!"  
"Shit..." He mumbles, "keep talking Lance, I'll come to you."  
"Okay, good because I think I hear those coyotes you were talking about and they sound awfully hungry, please hurry!!" Lance looks around him, his eyes wide, he can barely see in front of him, only outlines of rocks and boulders. "Uhh, are you close? I can't really-AHH!" He jumps when Keith touches his arm from behind.  
"C'mon, don't fool around!"  
"I wasn't fooling around, I got lost, it's fucking dark!" He sticks closely behind Keith, keeping his eyes on his pale skin. For some reason unknown to Lance, he reaches out and laces his pinky around Keith's pinky. Keith doesn't say anything or do anything, mostly because, he doesn't know what to do or say. Lance's hand is brushing against the back of Keith's, Keith can feel the heat of his hand radiate on to his cold one. He wants to interlace their fingers and take in all the heat from his hand. Lance moves his ring finger and wraps it around his. "I really can't see anything, are you sure you know where you're going, mul-shit I can't call you that anymore."  
"I wonder the fuck why." Keith snaps back, he grabs Lance's hand completely. He doesn't get to interlace their fingers, that's too....romantic. Keith fears Lance would start getting weirded out by that, Keith picks up his speed as he sees his shack in the distance, it's still standing, he can't believe it.  
"Is your jet there, is it?!"  
"I dunno, c'mon!" Keith starts to run, not letting go of Lance's hand though. They run under the stars, through the cold desert together. Their hands gripping tightly to one another, not wanting to let go, afraid the other will let go. They come around the shack and see the red and white jet exactly where they left it. Keith finally let's go of Lance's hand and jumps on it, he turns it on and revs it up. It roars with enthusiasm, like it's excited to be driven again. He checks the gas and he put in Lance's address. He barely has enough to get him there and back.  
"Can that thing tell you what day it is?" Lance climbs on board, this time sitting behind him, looking over his shoulder.  
"No, but Red did say we arrived right on time so, I'll get you home no time. Hold on!" Keith smirks, he misses driving this old thing, they raise off of the ground and speed off. Lance grabs on to Keith backpack as they fly through the desert. Yet again Keith wishes that there wasn't an extra layer between them, every now and then he'll feel Lance's fingers or hand graze his back very lightly, he presses back against the feeling, wanting him to touch more of him. Hours pass and they see the sunrise peek over the horizon. The land is now flat and grassy, the heat and humidity is starting to build up around them.  
"How should I introduce myself?" Lance asks.  
"Just walk through the front door, you won't even have to say anything just walk in and they will probably do all the talking."  
"What do I tell them when they ask me where I've been?" He grips Keith's backpack tighter.  
"The truth and if they don't believe you, well, contact me through your helmet and I will come to back you up." Keith slows down as they enter the long, empty road to his house. He stops a few hundred yards away from the house, to hide the jet. He turns it off, Lance gets off and looks at Keith.  
"What about you? Where are you going?"  
"Probably back to the shack, I can watch over the lions..."  
"Don't you have anyone?" Lance bluntly asks.  
"N-no, I don't. I'm an orphan." Keith looks away, frowning. Lance's jaw drop, he didn't know he was an orphan, he shouldn't of asked so bluntly!! All he thought to do was to invite Keith to stay.  
"Stay with me! My family won't mind! We're a team! We stick together right?!"  
"But, the lions, Lance, what if someone messes with them?"  
"They have their shields up, they're hidden too, they'll be fine. C'mon." He pulls him off of the jet. "You and I both know that you don't have enough gas to make it back there and then back here to get me and back to the lions."  
"I....I don't want to intrude, it's your family."  
"Just shut up and come on." He walks down the road, Keith trails behind, the dirt beneath his feet isn't hard and dry, it's damp and mixed with sand, the grass is patchy and very green. The road is cracked and full of holes. "If you listen closely, you can hear the ocean..." Keith listens as best as he can, he faintly hears a hushing sound in the distance. Keith has never seen the ocean, he's not sure if he's hearing the right thing or not.  
"Is it that hushing sound?"  
"Have you ever seen the ocean?" Lance looks over his shoulder.  
Keith shakes his head, "No."  
"You'll love it." He smiles and looks back ahead of him. By the position of the sun, that's still rising, it should be six am right about now. The temperature is rising but not too terribly hot, Keith likes that, "There it is, there's my house!" He calls out, he sprints down the barren road. Keith starts running as well, trying his best to keep up, Lance trips a little, touching the ground beneath him slightly, regaining his balance, he takes off again. He gets up to the front of the house, he stops.  
"What're you...." Keith gasps for air, "waiting for?"  
"They're all probably still asleep, even though it's Christmas, my family always sleeps in late. We should be quiet, you hungry? We could grab a snack..."  
"Are you avoiding meeting them?" Keith quietly asks.  
"No, shut up, c'mon." He crosses his arms and walks around back, "they always keep the back door unlocked." They hop the fence, and once they do, the sounds of the waves become louder and more distinct. They walk over to the stairs and up to their wooden porch, the wood was once painted white but it's slowly peeling away, giving it a true rustic beach house vibe. Lance places his backpack down by the cushioned swing right next to the back door and Keith copies him. He tries the door knob and to their luck and Lance's knowledge, it's unlocked. They open the door and sneak in. The Christmas tree is the first thing Lance's eyes fall on, the tree is lit and filled with decorations, all of Lance's personalized ornaments are on the tree along with a picture of him hanging in the very front. He scans the living room, the couch is still the same, his dad's chair is still there, the rug too, everything is just as he remembers, he goes into the kitchen, he quietly makes him and Keith coffee. He doesn't know what to say, or do. He's overwhelmed, he's finally home. All that dreaming and fantasizing has finally come true. He pours them each a cup and adds sugar and creamer.  
"Let's sit on the swing...." Lance walks back outside, Keith closes the door behind them, Lance sits down on the swing and Keith sits next to him, he crosses his legs and looks out on the huge body of water in front of them.  
"It just goes on for miles and miles."  
"That's what an ocean is..." Lance is tense, Keith can feel it.  
"Relax, you're home." Keith reaches out to touch his arm in attempt to comfort him but Lance grabs his hand and squeezes it.  
"I don't know if I can do this, I can't tell them goodbye, I can't." He's staring out on the ocean, terrified.  
"Then don't say goodbye." Keith squeezes his hand back. Lance is about to say something but the back door opens.  
"Christopher, why are you up this early?" Lance's mother scans the back porch until her eyes fall upon a stranger and her son, her youngest son, she thought she had lost him, she covers her mouth and gasps. Lance puts down his cup and let's go of Keith's hand, he goes over to his mother and pulls her into his arms.  
"I'm back, Mom." He whispers, she clings on to him and sobs into his shoulder. Keith watches the beautiful but tragic moment between the two. Keith believes that soon he will have to drag Lance away from his family....but how soon? They never talked about how long they would stay here....he looks back out on the bright blue ocean, he slightly smiles to himself, with a view like that, he wouldn't mind to stay for a little while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to upload this sooner but I've been so busy! I hope you've had a nice day, thank you for reading!


	8. Pounding Hearts

Coran is sitting down and scanning over a very disturbing distress call the ship has gotten, he can't make out any words, there's only sounds of gunfire and screams. All he has is a blurry video that cuts out now and then. He can see Galra in the distance, running and fighting some locals on a very snowy planet. Then, it cuts out, there's static, then it cuts back in, the screams become louder and cuts off completely.  
"Have you located where it's coming from?" Shiro's voice interrupts Coran's intense focus on the screen in front of him. He leans back and rubs his eyes.  
"No! If only Pidge was awake, I bet they could figure this out in an instant!!" He complains, Shiro lays his hand on Coran's shoulder, giving it a firm squeeze.  
"Keep trying, I believe in you."  
"Thanks, Shiro...." he sighs, "How's Pidge's condition?"  
"A little better than yesterday, they should be up in no time." Shiro gives Coran a small smile, masking his own worry to soothe Coran's. 

 

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

 

"Voltron?" Lance's mother repeats back to her son in confusion. Her baby has been gone for six months, and when he miraculously comes back he's saying all this crazy talk about a lion and a giant robot named Voltron and he's one of the defenders of the galaxy? She doesn't understand, she can't wrap her head around it, she looks over at the serious looking boy he brought with him, "Is this true?" He nods but doesn't say anything, she looks over at her husband, then her two other children in concern. She doesn't know what to say, should she believe him?  
"I'll get our bags..." Keith speaks up, he stands up and goes back outside where they've forgotten their backpacks. Keith picks up both and brings them back in, he looks at Lance as he hands him his bag, he looks worried, hurt as well. Keith sits down and unzips his bag, he pulls out a few cans of space goo and some odd looking fruits. The family stares at the alien like things in shock as Keith reaches in for his helmet.  
"W-wait, should we?" Lance says nervously.  
"Of course, I'll go first." Keith looks him in the eyes, he decides he will have to be Lance's anchor in all of this, he pulls out his helmet and sets it on the table next to the food, "This is the food Lance was talking about, along with a piece of our armor. And this...." Keith pulls out his bayard and turns it into a sword, "our bayards." His mom jumps back in shock along with Lance's siblings, but his dad leans in to study it.  
"It's true...." His dad mumbles.  
"What?" His mom asks.  
"A few months ago I was asked to scan over some strange reception coming in from a satellite, and the only word I could pick up was, "Voltron." The language was strange and overwhelming but the word, "Voltron" was repeated many many times. I'm supposed to share this information with you but it was life outside of Earth, it was something beyond our comprehension...So, Voltron is a robot..." He puts on his glasses and pick's up Keith's helmet. Keith puts his sword away and nudges Lance.  
"Oh, yeah...here's mine." Lance fumbles to open his backpack to get out helmet, once he does get it out, his dad takes it from him and compares the helmets side by side. Lance doesn't know how to feel, he's glad no, he's ecstatic that he's home but his family is looking at him as if he's crazy. He's grateful that Keith remembered about their backpacks because, honestly, he's so nervous he doesn't know what's up from down.  
"Are you like some technical engineer or something?" Keith asks Lance's dad.  
"Something like that, yeah." He nods and hands their helmets back to them.  
"So, this is true?" His mom looks over at his dad, he nods, he looks back at Keith.  
"We haven't formally met. My name is Christopher, you?" He sticks his hand out, Keith takes it and shakes it.  
"Keith."  
"Nice to meet you, this is my wife, Catalina and our children, Jasmine and Marcus." He gestures to his family sitting on the couch beside them. Keith nods and sits back a bit. Lance looks over at the Christmas tree, his heart aches as he stares at the picture of him sitting at the bottom of the tree with a small unlit candle placed in front of it.  
"I'm sorry...."Lance mumbles, "I'm sorry I couldn't tell you that I was okay, I'm sorry I just ran off like that, please forgive me, please." He bows his head down, he can't manage to look at his family right now. Then, he starts to feel a hand on his lower back, gently rubbing back and forth. Keith. He closes his eyes and breathes out, he takes deep breaths and looks up again. His mother takes his hand into hers and brings his fingers to her lips.  
"Don't apologize for something you couldn't of helped, this is what you were destined for." She kisses his fingers, he smiles, a huge weight is lifted off of his shoulders.  
"Hijito, it's okay, you're here with us now." His dad smiles. That was bittersweet for Lance, that damn pet name. He smiles back and looks down once more.  
"Let's open presents, shall we?" Catalina let's go of Lance's hands, clasping her hands together, smiling.  
"Yes!" Lance's brother Marcus calls out, he digs into the presents under the tree and separates them all. Lance and Keith watch everyone open their presents and say thanks to one another, Lance can't count how many times his mother has passed Keith and him sad glances, she wants them to have something to open as well. To her this is unfortunate timing.  
Keith's stomach growls and out of habit, he starts to reach for a can goo when Lance reaches out and grabs his wrist.  
"No need to waste supplies when we have a cabinet full of food, human food in the kitchen." Keith's eyes light up with life that Lance has never seen before. Unknown to Lance, Keith loves food, he loves cooking, baking, all of it. Only when it comes to human food of course, he looks at Lance with huge puppy dog eyes, begging for Lance to get up and get him something to eat. "C'mon." He sighs, Keith smiles and follows Lance into the kitchen. He opens up the small pantry door, it's packed full with cans of food to muffins and cupcakes in plastic containers to chips and unopened dip.  
"What can I have?" Keith asks.  
"Anything." Lance shugs. Keith reaches in and grabs food enough for the both of them, he opens up a giant bag of Doritos and reaches his hand in the same time Lance does, he looks up at Lance, "What? I want human food too." Both grabbing a handful of food and shoving it into their mouths, they peacefully lean against opposing counters, taking in the delicious flavor of real food.  
"How are you feeling?" Keith whispers. Lance shugs again, opening up a small bag of mini muffins.  
"Thanks for...being there." Lance says as he shoves two muffins in his mouth, he's referring to Keith's hand on his back, it comforted him a lot. Keith feels that fluttering sensation in his stomach again, he doesn't say anything back. "I mean it, you really did help me out..."he laughs a little awkwardly, "you'll probably need to continue to do so..."  
"N-no problem." Keith can feel the heat spread across his cheeks, he inwardly curses himself for stuttering like an idiot. He shoves another mouthful of Doritos into his mouth. Lance smiles at him, and if Keith isn't mistaken, there's a bit of a blush on his cheeks too. Does he like Keith back? No, he's probably just worked up from being home, it's fine, no need to assume something so insane, he awkwardly laughs to himself as he follows Lance back into the living room after grabbing himself a soda to drink.  
"What in the world are you two eating?! It's breakfast time! No chips!" Catalina scolds them, she stands up and takes their junk food away, Keith is devastated. "I'll cook." She tosses the bags of chips down on a counter and starts pulling out ingredients from different cabinets. Keith looks over at Lance and he just sheepishly smiles. 

 

After a day of Lance reconnecting with his family and Keith connecting with Lance's family, they finally go into Lance's room to get away from all the attention. Lance's room is the first room on the left, it's a relatively small room, covered in posters of old movies, and TV shows. His twin sized bed is tucked away in the corner of the room next to the only window, it's neatly made and clean. Matter of fact, the entire room was kept completely clean, not a speck of dust anywhere to be found. The room is so...Lance. Keith couldn't explain why it is, it just screamed Lance. The striped comforter on his bed and the little action figures on his dresser. It is all so...so much like him but, only one thing stood out to Keith, it's almost as surprising and charming as knowing he can make a flower crown. There was white Christmas lights draped around his ceiling. Keith places down his bag and goes straight towards the outlet with the plug in for the lights, he shoves it into the outlet and the whole room lights up a little more. Lance freezes in his place, he forgot about those, he closes his eyes and drops his shoulders.  
"Tough Lance is a façade isn't it?" Keith laughs and looks up at the lights.  
"Shut the hell up!" He unplugs the lights, he stands in between Keith and the outlet, "I was afraid of the dark when I was little so, my parents bought me a night light-"  
"Christmas lights?" Keith crosses his arms.  
"Will you let me tell my story?" He huffs out and continues, "the one light wasn't enough apparently so, my parents got some stringed lights and hung them up for me....I forgot they were even there!" His face is so red with embarrassment, Keith loves it, he covers his mouth with his hand to hide his smile. "What?!"  
"It's cute!!" Keith laughs, then, not even two seconds after saying that he registers what he just said, he stops laughing and drops his smile. Lance's eyes get wide, his stomach ties in knots. Did Keith just call him cute? No, the lights are cute but the lights are related to him so...so...he said he was cute! Why was Lance so suddenly feeling like this? Why does Keith look so shocked? It's just a stupid word. Keith opens his mouth to say something but, Catalina calls out to everyone that dinner is ready. Without a moment of hesitation, both boys storm out of Lance's room and into the dining room. 

Lance and Keith sit down at the medium sized table in the dining room, that’s connected to the kitchen. They squeeze in a computer chair from Marcus's room for Keith to sit in. Two plates of chicken carbonara is placed in front of them, as well with the rest of the family. Lastly, a bowl of freshly baked garlic knots is placed in the middle of the table. Lance grabs two of them, he was intending to keep both of them for himself but he placed the second one on Keith's plate.  
"Try it, they're my favorite." He smiles at Keith, Keith picks up the garlic knot, he's had garlic bread before, he takes a bite of it, and eats it. Lance looks at him expectantly.  
"I like it." He tells him. Lance smiles, he seems proud of himself. After eating almost two whole plates full of pasta, Keith and Lance scrape their plates and place them in the sink. "Hey, Lance?"  
"Yeah?" Lance is heading back to his room.  
"Could we go see the ocean?" Keith feels awkward asking this for some reason.  
"Sure!" He turns back around and leads Keith outside, they walk through his backyard, Lance opens their back gate, from there is a small stepping stone path down to a small sidewalk. Lance leads him to the sidewalk, from there they walk a little ways down the sidewalk to a wooden bridge across the sand dunes. "Oh, well, shit." Lance mumbles, he looks down the wooden stairs.  
"What is it?" Keith walks up and looks down as well, the water is almost all the way up the stairs, why? The sounds of the waves are so loud, he can barely hear anything besides the water and Lance's voice.  
"The tide is in, sorry." He turns around to walk back.  
"It's alright." Keith slips off his shoes and socks, he sits down a few steps above the water and cautiously puts his feet in the water, the water slaps against his skin, it's so cold, he scrunches his toes up and sits very tense on the old wooden step. Lance watches him, it's like a baby meeting the ocean for the first time, it's adorable. He copies Keith, taking his shoes off, sitting down and placing his feet in.  
"The moon's gravitational pull determines when the tide of the ocean comes in or is out." Lance tells him. He nods, watching the water below him, he can barely see their feet in the water. He reaches down and lightly touches the salty water. "In the morning the tide should be out, we can come back then and I can teach you how to make a sandcastle!" That tight feeling in Lance's stomach comes back again, then his heart starts pounding when Keith looks up at him with a huge smile.  
"Really?"  
"Of course!" Lance laughs, yet again for what feels like the millionth time, Lance is pumped with adrenaline. He reaches over and grabs Keith's hand. Keith sits up, that's the second time Lance has made a move to hold his hand today....he looks over at Lance and he's staring out on the ocean, the wind is blowing in his face, brushing his wavy brown hair away from his forehead. Keith swallows and looks out on the ocean as well, the sun is setting. Keith moves his hand, not away but to interlace their fingers together. They sit like that until the sun goes down completely and the stars start to come out. Lance instinctively looks up and scans the familiar constellations in the sky. He's made it home. Home to the people he loves, he never wants to leave. The water has receded a little since they've sat down, along with the temperature, Keith has slowly made his way closer and closer to Lance. Their hands laying on their connected legs, their shoulders pressed together, they've been in a comfortable silence. Not really thinking about anything.  
Their worries about their friends, about where they should go after this and how long they should stay here, is shoved to the back of their minds. For Lance, he's gotten his wish and well for Keith, he's about to be surprised.  
"We should get back, it's late and I don't want my mom thinking I've ran away again." Lance can't help but to smile at Keith, there's something about him right now that he can't resist.  
"Oh okay, I hold you to that sandcastle thing, by the way." Keith starts to let go of Lance's hand. At first, he was freaking out that Lance was okay with holding hands and him being so close to him, but now he's looking into Lance's beautiful blue eyes. Something is different, they way he's looking at him is really different. That warm feeling from when he hugged him from before starts to spread across his chest and cheeks. He feels Lance place his free hand on his cheek, and pull him closer. Not just him but his face closer. Keith's heart is pounding, he closes his eyes. Is this really happening, is Lance going to....  
Lance doesn't know why he's doing this, he just knows it's right. Once his lips press against Keith's, his entire body is set on fire, it's like literal sparks are flying, all those cheesy lines about amazing kisses are true and is happening right now. Both of them go on autopilot as they kiss. Keith didn't know what to do at first, he just started moving his lips back, Lance let go of his hand and wrapped his arm around him and pulled him even closer. Keith is in seventh heaven, his mind is hazy and his body is so relaxed. He wraps his arms around Lance's neck as Lance moves his body to the side to lean against the railing of the bridge; so he could pull Keith on to his lap. Lance started to move his kisses from Keith's lips to his face, down to his neck and then to his shoulder, but he ran out of skin to kiss and he was too embarrassed to go back up so he laid his head down on his shoulder. Keith's heart is pounding, he is out of breath, his hands are in Lance's hair. He doesn't know how or why things escalated so fast, he didn't think Lance would make the first move. He starts to smile, he leans his head back and let's this warm feeling take over again. This is great, this feels great, this is all he ever wanted, he wish he knew that sooner. He moves his fingers to scratch Lance's scalp. Lance moves his head to the side, Keith feels his breath on his neck, a chill goes down his spine.  
"What was that?" He asks.  
"I don't know but I liked it." Keith responds, he sits all the way down on Lance's lap, he brings Lance's face up, it's red of course. "Did you?"  
"Yeah..." He mumbles and looks away. Keith wraps his arms around him once more and hugs him, this time no extra layer between them. Just Lance's pounding heart against his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm about to throw some fluff at you in this next chapter! Get ready lmaoo. It's Wednesday, time for YOI! I hope today's episode goes well. Thank you for reading! And also to those that comment, thank you for being so nice. <3 update: it was amazing, it was beautiful and i am crying. ;-;


	9. I Don't Know What I'm Feeling...

Keith is still holding Lance in his arms, never wanting to let go. He smells like sweat and dirt; when was the last time they've taken a shower? Probably that jungle planet, he doesn't mind though, it's Lance so it's okay. Lance moves his hands up and down Keith's back in a slow manner. Unlike Keith who is in heaven right now, not being able to believe that some little stupid crush was mutual; Lance is confused, he doesn't know why he wanted to kiss Keith, yeah he's had a few odd feelings and weird thoughts here and there. But wasn't he the guy that always flirted with any pretty girl he saw? Keith was neither of those things, he's a guy and he isn't pretty, is he? Lance raises his head up and looks at him, his cheeks are blushed pink, his dark eyes and hair stand out boldly against his pale skin. He has a small smile across his lips, those soft pink lips that were just against his. Lance reaches up and touches Keith's cheek, Keith leans into it. He grazes his thumb across his cheek a few times, he watches Keith close his eyes and let him touch him freely. Yeah, maybe he is "pretty" but still, it's Keith....  
It's obvious to Lance that Keith had feelings for him before this happened, that's why he's taking this so well, Keith must be so happy right now. For some reason right then, his mind goes back to when Keith told him he was an orphan. He's been alone most of his life and ever since he's met Keith, he's been a loner, a moody, grumpy person on the surface but, Lance got underneath his skin not in the usual annoying way but the breaking down his walls kind of way, he's seeing a more passionate and happy Keith. Is this something Keith has been hiding or is this feeling new to him? Why Lance? Why did Keith decide to open up to him? Lance brings his other hand up to cup Keith's face in his hands, Keith opens his eyes a little to look at Lance.  
"Why, me?" Lance asks softly, almost too softly, Keith could barely hear the question over the sound of the waves next to them.  
"What do you mean?" Keith has slid his hands down to Lance's stomach a little while ago.  
"Why did you pick me to open up to?"  
"It just sorta happened, I don't know." He furrows his eyebrows together, looking away from Lance, something about that kind of hurt Lance's feelings.  
"Don't grump up on me."  
"Don't ask stupid questions...." Keith mumbles.  
"It's not stupid!" Lance drops his hands down next to him, to reposition himself on the hard bridge surface.  
"Is to," Keith crosses his arms, "It happened because we obviously like and trust each other, right?" Keith looks at Lance. Lance freezes up, he doesn't know what to say, he doesn't know what he's feeling. Half of him is screaming yes, yes I like him, tell him you like him! Then, there's the other half that's questioning everything he's feeling, is this right? Keith is a boy...he's never had a crush on a boy, what if this is some complex thing that's only happening because of the past few weeks they've been alone together? Does this really mean something or are they just lonely? He stares up at Keith who is getting more and more impatient.  
"I...I don't know." Lance shrugs, "I guess I do, I did kiss you." Keith is shocked, he doesn't know? How could he not know? He's the one that kissed him! He doesn't know what to do, he's never been through anything like this before, that warm feeling in his chest is replaced with something more tight and confusing. He doesn't like it, he doesn't know how to handle it. Keith gets up, he needs to get away, away from this weird, weird situation. "H-hey!" Lance calls out and grabs his wrist, "wait! I'm sorry!" He truly is sorry, he doesn't want him to go. Keith jerks his arm away and grabs his socks and shoes, Lance gets up and grabs him by the shoulders. He looks into Keith's eyes, he's shutting down, he's cutting off his emotions, he can see it plain as day. "Don't shut down on me, Keith, please." Lance feels as if he's going to explode from all this pressure and confusion, he wants things to be okay, he doesn't want Keith to shut down again. Keith is just standing there, not even looking at him, Lance is panicking. He resorts back to the only thing that could open up Keith again, he kisses him again. He tries to fill it up with as much passion as he can, before pulling away and leaning his forehead against his.  
"What are you trying to do with me?" Keith whispers, one minute Lance is all over him, then he's taking it back and now he's kissing him again, what is going on inside his head?  
"Give me a chance, let's see where this goes, okay?" Lance closes his eyes and bites his lip, hoping this worked because maybe, just maybe, if he could figure out his feelings for Keith and keep Keith happy at the same time....Keith on the other hand is starting to become afraid of his developing feelings for Lance, one minute he was on top of the world because of him and then he felt like he was a piece of dog shit being scraped off of the bottom of a shoe and now, he just wants to punch the stupid out of Lance. He doesn't like his emotions being all over the place, he's always been in control of his emotions and he's managed to wreck them in a matter of a few seconds. "Please, Keith." He sounds so desperate....  
"Okay...okay." Keith nods, Lance pulls him into a hug, he's more than relieved right now. Lance closes his eyes, the longer he holds on to Keith the more he dreads the moment he lets go, he doesn't want to let go, his entire bodily instinct is craving more and more of Keith but his brain is setting off alarms to back away before he's attached, before it gets weird.  
"Let's really get back to the house now." Lance lets go of Keith, "Okay?" He smiles, Keith nods and follows Lance off of the bridge. They walk hand in hand until they get back to his back gate, "Uh, let's hide this from my family for now..." Lance is so nervous, he is barely ready to face his family more or less have this relationship with Keith.  
"I'm okay with that..." Keith lets go of Lance's hand as he opens the gate and lets him walk in first, they walk back into the house, it's quiet and dimly lit. His parents are sitting on the couch together drinking wine, they were having a calm conversation a little bit about everything, when Keith and Lance walked in both of them turned their gaze to the blushing, nervous couple.  
"You two were gone for awhile..." Catalina smiles as she sips her wine.  
"I've..never seen the ocean before, I was pretty mesmerized." Keith awkwardly laughs. "More like mesmerized by your stupid son." He thinks the second part to himself.  
"The tide was in though..." she gestures to the cork board on the small closet that’s on the connecting wall between the dining room and living room area. On the cork board is a chart for the week for the tide times.  
"We just sat on the bridge and stuck our feet in the water! Then we just started talking and lost track of time!" Lance smiles, he places his shoes down by the door and nudges Keith to do the same. She nods and smiles,  
"You know where the extra blankets are, sweetie, make sure Keith his comfortable." 

Lance gets some blankets out of the hall closet and brings him into his room, he starts to lay a blanket out on the floor until he sees Keith climb into his bed and remembers, "Oh we're a thing now, same bed is...normal." He wouldn't dare say that out loud though. Sharing a bed with Keith...this ought to be fun, he's never shared a bed with anyone before. It doesn’t seem that bad, though. Part of him is looking forward to it...holding Keith...Lance shakes his head and rubs his eyes, he can't really be feeling this can he? He looks over at Keith who is picking at his nails, his cheeks are still a little red, Lance wonders if his heart is still beating just as hard as his....  
"Hey...could I take a shower?" Keith looks up at Lance and catches him staring.  
"Of course, go on." Lance tosses the blanket on to the bed and stretches his arms up in the air and yawns.  
"Where are the towels?" Keith asks, as he gets off of the bed. Lance gets him a towel and shows him how to use the shower and where the soaps are. "You should shower after me, you haven't bathed since that jungle planet." Keith fixes Lance's messy hair a bit, Lance couldn’t help but smile at the small act of care right then.  
"Okay, I will..." He can't say no to Keith...besides he needs a shower he can practically smell himself. 

 

Falling asleep that night was awkward, Lance didn't have to confidence to make a move to cuddle Keith... So, there's two full grown guys sleeping in a twin size bed and that is cramped enough but Lance literally takes up the entire bed. Keith tried to ignore how Lance's leg was draped across both of his, and how his arm was right against his back, he really did try to ignore it. He just couldn't sleep like that, he sits up and looks over at Lance. He's sound asleep, his mouth open, his shirt pulled up from his tossing and turning.  
"If you can't defeat them, join them....." Keith mumbles, hoping he won't regret this. He lays his head down on Lance's chest and gently lays his arm across Lance's torso. He moves around a bit to settle into his new spot. Lance's soft, deep breathing eventually lulls Keith to sleep. Morning comes fast for those two, sunlight pours into the room, waking them up, Lance is first. His arms are wrapped around Keith who is practically laying on top of him, he starts to stir, slowly waking up, he nuzzles his face in the crook of Lance's neck. It was adorable, too adorable, Lance's heart is racing, he doesn't know what to do, he doesn't want to wake him up!  
"What's your deal? I can feel your heart, y'know..."Keith mumbles, his lips brushing against Lance's skin, this really isn't helping him out right now, he's trying to calm down not have a fucking heart attack....Keith chuckles a little and sits himself up, yet again he's straddling Lance, this time his hair is messy and the side of his face is red and is imprinted from the wrinkles in Lance's shirt, Lance makes a mental note to not wear a shirt the next time he goes to bed with Keith...He squints from the incoming light, he then yawns and stretches his arms up in the air. Lance doesn’t know how much can take of this...  
"I didn't know you were a cuddler...." Lance laughs a little, he doesn't know what he should do, Keith is being so romantic, he's so...so into this. He should be too, he should return the affection but, he's too embarrassed to.  
"I'm not, you took up the whole fucking bed, I compromised." Keith smirks.  
"By making me your bed??" Lance sits up a bit using his arms to holds him up from behind.  
"Yup, exactly." Keith gets off of Lance, "Uh, does your mom keep spare toothbrushes anywhere?" 

 

A little later in the day, everyone goes down to the beach. At first it was just going to be Keith and Lance but, once Marcus saw them in Lance's old swimming trunks, he asked to tag along, soon after Marcus was accepted to go with them, Jasmine came up with the idea with a "family day at the beach like old times." So now, we have the entire McClain family sitting on the empty beach the day after Christmas. It's not freezing but it's not warm either. Even though they are wearing swim trunks, everyone is wearing some sort of jacket as well.  
"So, to make a sandcastle, you have to pack in a bunch of wet sand into this bucket first...." Lance dug out some old beach toys from under their porch that morning, determined to make the best sandcastle ever for Keith.  
"Why wet sand?" Keith scoops up the wet sand into his hands and plopping it into the red bucket between them, Keith doesn't really like how the sand doesn't come off after he touches it, he feels so...grimey?  
"Because, dummy, dry sand won't stick together." Lance pats the sand down with the only sand shovel he could find. "Alright, now we turn it over and pull the bucket off!" Lance picks up the bucket and slams it back down. Keith grabs the bucket with Lance and yanks it back up. Then, a slightly deformed mound that looks like the inside of the bucket sits between them.  
"Oh...."Keith tries to reshape it, "do they always come out like this?"  
"Kinda but we can fix them, let's make more!" Lance hands Keith his own bucket. This sounded like fun to Keith last night, romantic even, but now, he regrets it. Lance is obsessed with this, he told Keith; he wants to make the best sandcastle ever but is it necessary to have a giant wall around their small castle? Lance has Keith completely boxed in, Keith isn't even sure that he can step over this wall of sand without damaging it in some sort of way.  
"Lance.." Keith stands up, the walls coming up to his knees, he hesitates to step over the wall.  
"Yeah! We should have a mote around the castle walls! We could fill it up with water too!" Lance babbles to himself.  
"Hey, Lance, help." Keith reaches one leg up and slowly gets it over the wall, "Ah, wait I think I got-" Keith foot starts sinking and slipping in the wet sand, he looks over, his foot is sliding to their sandcastle. He tries to move his other leg but it grazes the side of the wall, slowly, he's halfway doing the splits. "Oh, no, oh no." He tries to pull his foot up and away from the castle but he just makes another hole, "Lance, Lance!" He calls out.  
"We could make a little water way to the ocean so it stays full.....woah! Keith! Careful!" Lance jumps up and goes over to him, helping pull him out of the sand. "It's all muddy and hole-y in there..." Lance pouts.  
"I'm sorry...I couldn't get out."  
"Why didn't you say something?" Lance looks over at Keith only to get an icy glare. "What?"  
"I did."  
"Ahh hahah, I didn't hear you, sorry." Lance places his hand on the back of his neck and rubs it a little as he awkwardly laughs. Keith looks him over, he seems nervous. Lance always pays attention, is it because of their new status? Does it bother him that much. Keith looks over at his parents who are sitting in some beach chairs, holding hands as she listens to music and he sleeps. Then, he looks at Marcus and Jasmine, they're building their own sandcastle.  
"Is there a place where we could find some cool shells or something?" Keith smiles, he wants to be alone with Lance, he can't ask him here if something is wrong, obviously.  
"Uhh...just walk along the water and you'll-" Lance stops talking when he sees another famous icy Keith glare. "Yeah! Over here...." Lance doesn't know what he did wrong this time, why is Keith mad? He leads Keith to this small cave where he and his brother used to look for crabs when they were little, it's out of the way and out of sight. The moment they are completely alone, Keith speaks up.  
"You're acting weird...."  
"How so??" Lance smiles, he squats down and looks into the small cave entrance.  
"You're smiling and laughing more than usual, which means you're uncomfortable, and you didn't hear me call your name like a thousand times even though I was right next to you.." Keith says bluntly, a little more bluntly than Lance was comfortable with, was he really that easy to read?  
"I don't know what to say..."he drops his smile.  
"You're upset about being with me...Lance, if it makes you that upset, then don't do this!" Keith grabs Lance's arm and tugs him up gently.  
"I'm nervous okay? I haven't....I don't know what to do."  
"Just treat me like you did before but....hold my hand I guess..."  
"Not in front of my family."  
"I know that." Keith goes up to Lance and takes his hand into his, "Let me tell you this, take it as it is, I didn't have feelings for you at first, but after I saw this other side of you, this caring and homesick side, it was charming and refreshing. I really do like this side of you, and then all those times you saved me,"he laughs a bit, he's beyond nervous to say these things out loud, he really doesn't want Lance to think he's fucking weird after just being able to call him his....well, he's not sure if he can call him his if he's uncomfortable with this, might as well get this out of the way and pretend this never happened, "before I knew it, I had this stupid developing crush on you. I was just going to let this pass, ignore it until it went away."  
"Then, I kissed you..." Lance nods, looking down at his feet, digging his toes into the cold sand.  
"Yeah, but Lance, this feeling I had when you did..." Keith looks at his hands as if he's trying to materialize the feeling, he squeezes his hands shut, he searches his mind for the words but nothing can help him describe this feeling the right way, "my entire body was lit up! I felt like I was flying, every worry and concern floated away and there was only you...just you...now, you've got me" he laughs almost bitterly, "wrapped around your finger. I've never felt like that before...ever...." Keith breaks the eye contact he was holding with Lance a few moments ago and looks down. Adrenaline has basically consumed him, his entire body is shaking, visibly. Lance thinks about his words, he was right about the crush happening because they were alone together, and Keith being new to this feeling. Keith laid his heart out in front of him and there's no way in hell that Lance could ever break it. He'd rather, scoop it up, protect it with everything he can and let Keith have his heart, if he ever found the courage to. Lance wraps his arms around Keith, he kisses his temple and just holds him.  
Keith clings on to Lance's jacket, he hides his red face in his shoulder. Is this that family bond feeling he's been missing out on? This may be too early to ask himself but is this what love feels like? Genuine affection and care. It's overwhelming, it's suffocating, it's smothering, it's...it's...too much. Keith holds on to Lance even tighter, Lance returns the strength.  
"You can depend on me, I will take care of you." Lance finally says something back after his heart wrenching confession, that one sentence, it will forever hold a place in Keith's heart. Dependence, he's only depended on his team to back him up but, he knows this will be different. Emotional dependence, someone to cry to, to laugh with and be angry with, that's new to Keith as well. And promising to take care of him? That's...even more of a powerful phrase for him, no one has "taken care" of him, he's been on his own for as long as he can remember. Does Lance even know the intensity of the words he's just said?  
"Let's finish this sandcastle now..." Keith clears his throat.  
"Keith..." Lance pulls away and yet again, he kisses him. The way Lance's lips brush against his and the feeling behind it all, leaves Keith breathless. Lance's stomach is filled with butterflies as he kisses his, boyfriend, he knows what he said probably meant a lot to Keith and he's ready to be there for him no matter what. He can't say no to him, he's too wholehearted. The way his cheeks got red as he confessed made Lance fall for him a little more. The way Keith held on to the front of his jacket as he hugged him made him feel worthy, worthy enough to protect Keith. 

That evening, Lance and Keith had the house to themselves as his parents went out grocery shopping and his siblings had to go to work. Lance dibed first shower on the way back to the house, so Keith awkwardly waited in Lance's room until he got out of the shower. When Keith finally took his shower, dried off and put on some of Lance's old clothes, he went into the living room to find Lance starting up a video game, Keith didn't see another controller and he was honestly too tired to play so he just sat next to Lance, leaning his head on his shoulder until Lance moved his arm and told him to sit in his lap. Keith smiles and climbs between Lance's legs, he leans against Lance as he wraps his arms around him and starts to play his game. Keith watches him beat one level after another until he became bored with the game and moved on to another one, something called "final fantasy", Lance said this one was new, he remembered telling his parents he wanted it for Christmas when he was still in the Garrison.  
"I can't believe they bought it for me...I didn't want to start playing it in fear that I'll want to defeat the entire game before going back into space..." Lance feels so much more comfortable than he did this morning, Keith's confession calmed him a bit, even though he didn't say anything that romantic and meaningful back, he didn't confess his feelings back because even though he wants to be with Keith, he's still unsure of what he's feeling.  
"Why not defeat the whole thing?" Keith, leans his head to the side so the top of his head leans against Lance's jaw, Lance lays his cheek against the top of Keith's messy hair that he found insanely adorable when he walked into the room and says without thinking,  
"Because, babe, the game has about 200 hours of gameplay." Keith's heart started to race at the pet name, he loved it. He looked up at Lance, he smiled down at him, Keith puckered up his lips a bit and Lance gave him a quick kiss, Keith feels so satisfied with himself. They sat there content for about an hour until they heard a car door slam out front, Keith climbed out of Lance's lap and sat a reasonable distance away from Lance. The front door swung open and his mother walked in with a few groceries. Lance pauses the game and gets up. Keith follows Lance's example as they walk out front and help bring in the groceries. As they walk out to get another load, his dad had already grabbed the last bag and closed the trunk.  
"Thanks for the help!" He smiles and walks past them, they start to follow him back in until both of the boys freeze in their place as a few drops of rain fell on top of their heads.  
"Lance...is that?" Keith looks over at Lance, he has a huge smile on his face.  
"Rain!" They both yell at the same time. They look up to the sky, the haven't seen normal, Earth rain in ages. Lance remembers telling Coran about rain back on Arus, his heart tenses up at the memory, he really does miss that guy. Within a matter of seconds, it begins to pour down on them, Lance runs around the yard, yelling and laughing in joy. Rain! Puddles! He jumps up and down in the forming puddles, Keith watches from the sideline at how innocent Lance is right now, how happy he is right now. It warms his heart.  
"Lance, Keith ¡entra ahora mismo!" Get in here right now! Catalina yells at them. Lance understood and followed her instructions with his shoulders slumped and his head bowed. Keith just heard the unhappy tone in her voice and just followed Lance. She got them towels to dry off on, and forced them to strip down to their boxers at the front door, not wanting them to ruin her carpet. Even though they were being scolded, Keith and Lance shared a few smiles and laughs. 

That night, Keith fell asleep before Lance did, Lance was still listening to the quiet pitter patter of the rain on the roof, he doesn't want to miss a second of the rain, normally, the sound of the rain would've made Lance fall asleep straight away. Keith is curled up in a ball, the blankets pulled up to his chin, Lance hasn't been able to take his eyes off of him, he's too cute...Lance reaches out and brushes the hair out of Keith's face, he looks so peaceful when he's sleeping, so unaware of the world around him, Lance didn't notice that he was smiling or that he was falling for this boy, hard. He just glad that he did go for a stupid instinct to kiss him. Deep down Lance could feel something brewing, something magical, powerful too coming from this small feeling he had whenever he looked at Keith. Lance has planned to leave Earth soon, not wanting to delay their search for their friends any longer. He may have to leave his Earth family behind but he'll have Keith by his side and that makes it all okay. He can always come back home for good once he saves the galaxy...he can't help but to laugh a little at how absurd that thought sounded as he cuddled up next to Keith.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The days are flying by for me! I didn't realize the last time I updated was last Wednesday! I hope you are doing well! Thank you for reading.


	10. Saying Goodbye

Keith woke up the next morning, right against Lance, his face buried in the middle of Lance's bare chest, Lance has his arms wrapped around Keith's shoulders, he's snoring, but the sound of his snores are muffled due to his face being shoved into a pillow. Keith raises up a bit to see it is only four am. He sighs and leans his head down against Lance's shoulder, he hates waking up early. That night Keith had a nightmare, one he's all too familiar with...it's more of a memory than a dream. Keith just arrived at a new foster home, he was sick and tired of being moved around all the time, and the only thing that ever kept him sane during all of that was this fictional book that took place in outer space, he's read it cover to cover four to five times, he loved the imagery and the way the main character was so heroic and cool. He flew the coolest space jets, defeated all the monsters he came across. Keith wanted to be just like that character, he wanted to get away from Earth as fast as he could, never to see another foster home ever again. That night though, Keith was sneaking around and looking in his foster parent's things, he came across a really old map of the stars, he laid it out on a desk carefully, he was enticed by all the details and the way it looked in general. All he wanted was to look at it, he leaned his hands down on the table to get a better look when he hit a cup sitting on the table and spilled it. He ruined the bottom corner of the map with some kind of red liquid. He panicked, he quickly picked up the map but it tore, he rolled up the ruined map and cleaned up the mess the best he could, he ran back to his room and hid the map under a loose wooden board he found earlier that day.   
Keith felt horrible, he ruined the most amazing thing he ever saw, he wanted to take it all back, to turn back time, he didn't know what to say to his foster parents and he didn't know how he could fix things. Keith stayed awake all night worried of when they would notice the map was gone. The next morning, his foster mother that he already has labeled as crude, was making breakfast for her already large family when he walked into the kitchen. He greeted her as nicely as he could and sat down at the table. It wasn't until that night his foster parents came up to him to ask him about a map, he declined about knowing anything about it, his foster dad left his room annoyed, not wanting to deal with it but his foster mother wanted the truth. She looked around his room until she saw Keith's favorite book sitting on his desk, she remembered him clutching on to that thing with all his might when he came into the house. She snatched it up and told him he wouldn't get this book back until he told them where the map was. Keith was nervous she would damage the book, or she would throw it away, so he jumped up right when she was walking out of the door.   
He showed her where the map was and when she saw the condition of it, she wouldn't even listen to his story, she grabbed the map and walked off. Still not giving the book back. She lied to him, she broke her promise, he got furious. He went after her, demanding his book back until, his foster father came into the kitchen and saw the ruined map. Keith apologized over and over but neither of them were listening. His foster mother took his book and grabbed some wine, she opened the book. Keith screamed for her to stop, he charged at her but his foster father grabbed him and held him back. She soaked the book in wine and ripped half the pages out, she threw it at him and said it's what he deserved. Keith began to cry, it was an accident, he didn't mean to ruin the map, he liked the map. Within a blink of an eye, his tears dried into anger, Keith pulled his arm out of his foster father's grip and charged at his foster mother, he shoved her against the counter and that's all he could do before he was held back again. This time his foster father slammed him against the wall and smacked the hell out of him, busting his lip.   
"You're fifteen, boys your age should be out playing sports anyways!" He yelled at Keith, he was sick of this, he wanted to get away from all of this for good. Picking up his ruined book, Keith made a b-line for the front door. His foster parents let him go, he ran down the street, crying, his lungs felt as if they were on fire as he ran. Every breath were like knives in his throat, his legs were screaming in pain, he was jumping fences and cutting through alleyways. He ran until daylight, he ran and ran until he came across some weird camp like place. He fell to his knees at the entrance, his feet were no longer able to hold him up, he dropped his book and fell face first into the hard desert ground. From there Keith was trained in the Garrison until he was kicked out for behavioral issues. 

Keith hates that dream, he hates it more than he hates being alone, he sits up and rubs his eyes. Lance's arms now around his waist. They left the Christmas lights plugged in overnight, the room is beautifully lit, it helps calm Keith. Slowly, he slips out of Lance's warm hold and pulls on a jacket. He sneaks out of the room, and out of the house, he walks himself down to the beach. Guilt is consuming him, every wrong thing he's ever done is attacking his brain. From small things he did as a child, to being kicked out of the Garrison to not asking that boy his name before he died. All of it is pounding down on him all at once. He would usually get up and work out or explore some place nearby when something like this would happen but this time he has neither of those options at his extent. He sat there for about ten minutes beating himself up before he heard footsteps coming up from behind him, Keith lifted his head up and turned around, a very sleepy looking Lance was there.   
"Why did you leave?" He mumbles as he rubs his eyes, Keith smiles and scoots over on the step he was sitting on, Lance sits down next to him, laying his head on his shoulder.   
"Did I wake you up?" Keith asks sheepishly.   
"Yeah...and when you didn't come back, I came looking for you.." Lance sits up and wraps an arm around Keith, "what's up?" He asks, his voice sounding more awake now, Keith found no reason to lie so, he told him the truth. He told him the dream, the thoughts he was having and why he left. Lance felt bad for Keith, no one should ever go through that kind of pain, it's all the more reason why Lance feels more strongly about protecting Keith.   
"There is this line in the book, the only part I remember about it, it was my favorite part..."   
"Tell me." Lance held Keith's hand in his.   
"well it was, "I have broke through the sunny bounds of Earth and I have danced with the stars, I've climbed mountains higher than any you've ever seen. I've flown through thousands of galaxies and each one has been more beautiful than the last. I've chased the red string of fate for years and years throughout space, I've done a hundred things that you haven't even dreamed of, and it all started because I took that one risk. The risk that changed it all."."   
"Are you sure this book wasn't about you?" Lance smiles, Keith thought about it, once it all clicks, his body is covered in chills. He's right, he's done all those things, just like the character in the book did. Keith smiles, he turns to Lance and tackles him with a hug, Lance lets out a laugh and holds on to Keith. He guesses he's finally done something right. Keith kisses his cheek and Lance's face heats up, "hey, let's watch the sunrise this morning. Who knows when we'll see it again."   
"Sounds good to me." Keith let's go of Lance and goes back to sitting next to him but this time in a happier state of mind. They walk back to the house and Lance insists on making coffee for this occasion, Keith lets him, once the coffee is made, they go out front to watch the sunrise, Lance opens the truck bed of his dad's car and sits down. Keith does the same, the sun rises just above their neighbor's house in the distance, the sun is bright yellow, which is making the sky an intense orange. The thin clouds in the sky are turned into a dusty brown color with hints of yellow here and there.   
"You know what I like about the sky, especially during these times?" Lance speaks up.   
"What?"   
"How it's always changing, five minutes from now, the sky won't look like this, it'll transform itself into another picture worthy scene." Lance smiles, he sips his coffee, it has Christmas cookie flavored creamer In it, it's the only creamer he could find, it makes the coffee extremely sweet, Lance finds it a bit much but Keith loves it.   
"I wish I had a camera, imagine all the photos we could take! You have to admit, some of the places we've seen out there are amazing." Keith finishes off his coffee, and sets the glass mug down next to him.   
"Especially those giant toads!!" Right then Lance makes a mental note to buy Keith a camera before they leave Earth, that could be his Christmas present to him. He can't wait to see the look on Keith's face when he sees it, although it would be even better if he could find that book he was talking about, but Keith forgot the name of it...   
"Every time I find you two, you're always looking at the sky in some sort of way." Catalina calls out front behind them. Lance turns around and smiles at her.   
"What are you doing up so early?" Lance asks.   
"Early? Honey, it's almost seven."   
"That's early." Lance says back, Keith nods in agreement.   
"Oh hush and get off of the truck now, I want to make a quick run to Walmart before the crowds get there." She adjusts the strap of her purse on her shoulder.   
"Wait. Can we go with you?!" Lance says eagerly, what perfect timing, what luck! She nods in a bit of confusement. "I'll be back soon, Keith." He turns and smiles at Keith.   
"Wha-wait, I can't go?"   
"Nope!" Lance jumps off of the truck bed and grabs both of their mugs, "C'mon, back in the house for you, back to bed!" He shoves Keith back into the house and back into his room.   
"Why are you doing this..." Keith asks nervously.   
"Shut up and go to bed! I'll be back in no time." Lance looks around to make sure no one is watching, he kisses Keith on the cheek and rushes off. He puts the mugs in the sink and slides on some shoes, he tries to calm down so the obvious blush on his face from kissing Keith is gone before he meets his mom outside. He really has to get used to kissing him, he can't get all flustered every time he does it, he'll fall over from a heart attack if he keeps this up. Lance climbs into the passenger seat of the truck and buckles up.   
"So, what are you trying to buy Keith?" His mom smiles as she pulls out of the driveway.   
"A camera! He said wishes he had a camera so he can take pictures of all the places we've been and conveniently you came outside and said you're going to Walmart, so this is my chance!" Lance looks out the window, he spots a hint of red in some bushes, good, Keith's jet is still there....   
"Do you have money for this camera?" She smirks, Lance freezes up, and slowly turns to her. He didn't even think about money.   
"I-I don't...."   
She starts laughing, "Oh honey, I know, I was joking." Lance sighs, he leans back against his seat. Lance is hit with nostalgia as they drive towards their local Walmart, he remembers driving here many many times growing up. He laughs a little.   
"I just realized something...I can fly a giant robot lion but I don't know how to drive a car...." He pretends he's flying Blue, right then, he thinks of Blue all alone in that cave, and feels bad for him, that’s until he remembers Red is there too, he can't be all that lonely. Lance closes his eyes, he focuses on Blue, he wonders if he can sense her from this far away. Faintly, he can feel her calm humming inside him. He smiles, he feels so exhilarated, he hasn't felt this good in ages. Everything is okay! He opens his eyes and rolls the window down, he sticks his head out partially and lets the cold wind hit against his face, smiling like an idiot.   
"What has gotten into you?" Catalina asks him.   
"I'm so happy, so happy, everything is good." He laughs and reaches his arm out the window as it begins to rain once more. 

They pull into the Walmart parking lot and park. Lance jumps out and races his mom into the store, he grabs a cart and he lets her do her shopping first.   
"Lance.." She says as she picks up some shampoo bottles.   
"Yeah?"   
"When do you plan going back to your Voltron thing?" She places the bottles into the cart and looks up at him.   
Lance laughs, "Kicking me out?"   
"No...It's just, this thing has to be important, and I want to be ready when you do leave again." She leads him into the next aisle, Lance had planned to leave tomorrow morning, he was going to tell everyone tonight but he guess he has to tell her now.   
"Well, I was planning to tell you all later today but...tomorrow." She turns around and looks at Lance in shock.   
"So soon?" She swallows hard and tries not to let her feelings show.   
"Yeah...You see..."Lance sighs, he doesn't want to tell her the danger that surrounds him and Keith, "we have some business to take care of and honestly...coming here.."he rubs the back of his neck and looks away, "is setting us a bit back but, it something I had to do...Mom.."he looks back at her, "you understand that you have to keep pretending that I'm missing after I leave right? If you don't..the Garrison will coming looking for us and get into something they can't go against and will cause unnecessary attention to the Milky Way galaxy," this information is spilling out of Lance, he can't lie to his mom but he can be very vague, "at the moment, this area plus some surrounding areas are safe and I will keep it that way, for you, for my family, my home, for everyone." The way he's talking right now is so different than the Lance she knows, it's grown up and so, so serious.   
"And you and Keith alone can go against whatever you're talking about??" She crosses her arms.   
"No, it's not just us....I'd rather stop talking about this now." Lance pushes the cart towards the snack aisle, might as well get some extra food, "would you mind getting us some extra food to take along?"   
"If you tell me who you're all with, I will." She's stubborn just like Lance, he sighs and contemplates just to not get the food but it could be end up being a life or death situation for them one day...he grinds his teeth for a second and turns around and faces her.   
"You really can't repeat this Mom." She doesn't say anything back, "There's me, Keith, Hunk Garrett, Pidge Gunderson and Takashi Shirogane but we call him Shiro...." Should he tell her about the princess and Coran?   
"Keep going, I can tell you're stalling."   
"…..Princess Allura and Coran." He mumbles.   
"A princess? Are you sure you're not making this up? Lance?" She goes over to him.   
"Explain Keith if I was. Explain the armor and the space food." He's offended that she's not believing him, he's her son, isn't she supposed to believe him, no matter how crazy?   
"I know...It's hard to take in.."She sighs and picks up some candy and chips and places it in the cart, "And by the way, I am too young to be a grandma! No babies!" She obviously made note of the fact that there was a female on his team.   
"Mom!" He blushes furiously, did she really have to yell that out in the middle of Walmart?? Lance goes to the next aisle over and grabs some canned food as well, stuff with high protein, things that would stick to their stomachs.   
"Since, we're asking questions, hijo...I noticed that scar across your stomach and I've been wondering when you'll tell me how you got that."   
Shit, shit, shit, shit, when did she see that??? Lance touches his stomach and looks over his shoulder at his mom.   
"I'm gonna go look for that camera."   
"Alright.." She eyes him as she watches him quickly walk away. Lance goes to opposite side of the store and finds the cameras. Should he get an expensive one?...no, they would probably destroy it...something cheap but not too cheap...Maybe a polaroid if they still sell those..wait, the film would run out, they need something with data to save the photos. He comes across a camera that isn't too bad, something they could easily take photos with and have some data cards to save all of their photos. He picks that up, along with a few cards and walks his way back to his mom. He shows her the camera, she nods and he places it in the cart.   
"Just a stupid accident, nothing serious." Lance answers the question finally, he kind of lied, it's not like he planned to get stuck in a compromised wormhole and then spit out on to a planet. She didn't seem to buy the lie but she didn't look like she really wanted to know either. 

When they get back to the house, Lance grabs all of his things and goes into his room, Keith is asleep. He lays the bags on the floor, he opens the camera and puts in some batteries, luckily his mom reminded him to buy a big back of batteries before they checked out. He turns on the camera and takes a picture of Keith sleeping. He climbs into his bed and shakes Keith a bit, his eyes open and looks up at Lance, he spots the camera and sits up.   
"You went to get a camera? You didn't have to..."   
"Your idea was good, we should document our space adventures!" Lance hands him the camera.   
"The way our adventures turn out, they sound unbelievable, they sound like some crazy dream." Keith finds the picture of him sleeping, "really?" He stares at it, "I look ugly."   
"DO NOT!" Lance gasps and snatches the camera back, Keith looks around Lance and sees the plastic bags on the floor.   
"What else did you get?"   
"Oh, some extra food for when we leave."   
"Smart thinking." Keith runs his fingers through his hair, trying to fix it.   
"I like your messy hair." Lance smirks.   
"Too bad." Keith takes the camera back, "Let's take a picture of the ocean!" 

 

That night, Keith packs up all their things into some spare luggage bags that Lance has in his room, Keith goes to bring his jet up to the house. Lance sees this as a good time to tell everyone goodbye. Lance calls everyone into the living room, once everyone sits down, he stands up in front of them. He's already set their bags by the door, including a duffle bag full of the food they bought.   
"You know why I was gone and what I was doing but, me coming back its...it's not a forever thing, you see..." He's choking up, he clenches his fists and looks his family in his eyes, he can practically see his entire life on Earth play out in front of him. Running around with Marcus and Jasmine, learning how to swim, learning how to ride a bike, everything, being in his parents arms, them kissing away his boo-boos and scaring away all the monsters. Baking with his mom and fishing with his dad, all the holidays he's spent with them and how...how this may be the last holiday they are together, "You see, what I do, it's bigger than you could ever imagine, Keith, Hunk, Pidge, Shrio and I, my team, we've sworn to protect the galaxy and that would be hard to do if I stay here.." He awkwardly laughs, then he drops his smile, "when Keith and I leave, you must pretend that I am missing and you don't know that Keith exists"   
"What?!" Jasmine stands up, Catalina pulls her back down on to the couch.   
"I'm sorry, it's how it has to be, for not only your safety but the safety for the Milky Way..."   
"Milky Way? The entire galaxy we live in??" Marcus speaks up, "what's so bad??"   
"Please, don't ask..." Lance doesn't want to do this, he should've waited until Keith came back. They all start asking all sorts of questions, Lance can't keep up, he glances out the window when he sees Keith pull up, thank god, Keith walks in and the room falls silent.   
"Ah...you're telling them..." Keith takes the sucker out of his mouth, wraps It up in its wrapper then, shoves it into his pocket for another time.   
"Safety of the Milky Way???" Marcus says to Keith. Keith doesn't have an emotional attachment to his brother really, so Keith says this without much emotion.   
"The galaxies outside of the Milky Way have been under attack of alien life forms called, Galra for about ten thousand years and Earth is relatively safe if we continue to protect the galaxy with Voltron. I won't go into details of our mission but it is important we get back out there soon. Lance needed this though, to see you all..."   
"Aliens???" Marcus can't wrap his head around this, Jasmine doesn't even understand what he's saying, Catalina is shocked about the Galra but the rest is expected, Christopher, Lance's father, on the other hand has his phone in his pocket, dialed to someone of high importance on speaker. He would be lying if he said he doesn't feel bad for doing this to his son but he has to get the word out about Voltron and as he was suspecting before Lance even showed up, alien life forms.   
"You have to assume us as dead towards others, please. I know we should've said this when we first came but seeing Lance alive was probably shocking enough, please understand the gravity of the situation."   
"Okay, okay.." Marcus places his head in his hands and sighs.   
"Also," Lance doesn't want to say this part, he's even considered Keith's words from before to not say goodbye but if he doesn't and something happens to him, he'll regret it, "time in space and time on Earth is vastly different." Keith places his hand on his shoulder for support, "for you, I've been gone for six months, half a year! But...but..." Lance stutters, he can't do it, he can't.   
"For us only about three or four weeks has passed." Keith continues for them.   
"What does that mean?" Catalina shakes her head in confusion, everyone is intently staring at Lance now.   
"It means, that when I leave this time, if I ever come back, It may be a long, long time from now...."   
"If?? May??" Marcus speaks up again, now being the voice of the family, "What're you saying, you're gonna die??"   
"It..I didn't say I would but I can't say I won't..." His eyes begin to water up, "If I ever come back, which would be after everything is fine or there's immense amount of danger, you'll age and...I" He can't find words that make sense, he looks over at Keith, water brimming in his eyes.   
"What he's saying is, when he comes back, he will probably still be young when you all will be much older or some of you may not even be here." Keith politely says.   
"The mission here was for me to say...Goodbye." Lance let the tears fall as he looks at his family, "These last three days have been amazing but I have to go. I...I want to wish you all the best for the rest of your...lives....I have to say this, I have to say goodbye, and that I l-love you all very much and I'm sorry, I'm sorry things have to be this way...I'm sorry." His voice breaks and he starts to cry, his mom gets up and pulls him into her arms, she's crying as well, everyone is crying.   
"Don't apologize, don't you dare. We love you too, hijo." She kisses his cheek and holds him close. Jasmine, Marcus and his father get up and they all hug.   
"I love you lil bro." Jasmine sobs.   
"You take care of yourself, alright??" Marcus adds in.   
"Hijito, one day you will come back to us, I promise." His dad tells him. Lance is crying hard now, he doesn't want to leave, he doesn't want to let go. He can't let go. Keith can tell he's on the verge of breaking down when his family backs away from him, Keith is ready to drag Lance out of there kicking and screaming as planned. Then, they hear coughing but no one in the room was coughing. Keith narrows in on the sound, and he reads Lance's father like a book.   
"What did you do." Keith says to him, staring at Christopher's nervous expression.   
"Wha-what?" He says back.   
"Empty your pockets!" Keith snaps.   
"Dad?" Lance looks at his dad.   
"I can't let you share all this important information and tell us not to say anything! Lance, Earth can help!" He tries to convince him.   
"No!" Keith steps forward.   
"Do you have any idea of what you have done?!" Keith and Lance yell at the same time.   
"You're going to pull attention to Earth about Voltron and if that happens..." Lance starts.   
"Galra will show no mercy! They'll kill you off and enslave you without a second thought!" Keith finishes, "Don't risk billions of lives without thinking things through!!" Keith snaps.   
"I will protect my son!" He snaps back.   
"By killing off everyone else?!?!" Keith get up in Lance's dad's face.   
"If that's what it takes! Do you even care about him? About yourself?! I cannot send my son back out there, not into some kind of war!" He yells and takes the phone out of his pocket, "did you get that?"   
"Lance we gotta go...." Keith grabs Lance by the collar of his shirt.   
"We said the morning!" Lance protests.   
"No! Change of plans! Now!" Keith pulls Lance out of the door after picking up their bags, he shoves the bags in the small trunk in the jet, Keith gets on and pulls Lance up behind him. Lance wraps his arms around Keith and leans his head on his back. Keith flies down the street and does his best to get back to their lions as fast as they can. Most of the way back, Keith felt Lance's tears soak through his shirt, he hated that he was crying and that he was probably the reason why things ended so sour. Maybe he shouldn't of yelled at his dad like that, he should've just stayed calm...Lance eventually calmed down and sat up a bit. By the time they get back to Keith's desert shack, the Garrison was already surrounding the place. "Shit, shit, shit..." Keith pulls the jet behind some boulders and gets off.   
"How did they find this place??" Lance grabs his backpack and the duffle bag full of food, Keith slides on his backpack.   
"I don't know, I didn't think anyone knew about this place!" Keith leans against the boulder, "we have to sneak around them but they could be anywhere, if they spot us, just run, we can't afford to attack them." Lance nods and tightens the duffle bag strap that’s across his chest, his eyes are a bit red and his cheeks are a bit puffy, he can still feel the wet spot on his back from Lance's tears.   
"We should get moving." Lance peeks around the boulder.   
"Are you okay?" Keith asks, reaching out and taking his hand into his.   
"I will be, let's just go." Lance quickly moves to the next rock settlement, Keith sighs and follows him. They stealthily move further and further away from the Garrison guards, the sun is now directly above them, the heat is pounding down on them, they stop to switch bags, Keith pulls the duffle bag strap over his head and adjusts it. Lance stretches his arms and places his hands on his hips and smiles, "good luck carrying that!" Keith rolls his eyes and they now leisurely walk towards the cave entrance of where their lions are.   
"Something is wrong." Keith speaks up and stops in his tracks.   
"What is it?" Lance turns and faces him.   
"Can't you feel it? Red is telling me to back off, something is wrong." Keith is worried, has the Garrison found the lions??? Lance tunes in on Blue once more and he gets the same feeling.   
"Should we call them to us?" Lance walks closer to Keith.   
"Would that be smart? What if the Garrison hasn't found them and we give away our position?" Keith chews on his nails considering his options, Lance grabs his hand and pulls it away from his mouth.   
"Let's see how close we can get to the cave before we call them to us." Keith nods, they walk cautiously hand in hand to the cave, when they get the to entrance, the entire perimeter of the cave is swamped with Garrison men, "yeah, let's call them to us." He says as he peeks around another boulder. Keith closes his eyes and gets in touch with Red, Lance does the same with Blue. Within seconds, the lions fly out of the cave and land in the open area near them.   
"Let's go." Keith and Lance dash towards their lions, open fire rains down on them as they run, Keith gets to his lion first, he drops his bags in the entrance way and rushes into his cockpit, he gets in his chair and takes off, Lance is following close behind. They rip through the atmosphere and fly off into space as fast as they can, they easily lose the Garrison in no time. "You alright?!" Keith yells at Lance.   
"Yeah! You??!" He yells back.   
"I'm fine!!" He says back, he sighs and leans back in his chair. "Lance?"   
"Yeah?"   
"I'm sorry I yelled at your dad, I think I made things worse than he should have been...." Keith looks at Lance through the video feed.   
"It would've been hard any other way, don't worry about it, let's just get back on track." Lance's expression is hard, the way things ended obviously bothered him but at least he said goodbye....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing emotional scenes are always a hit or miss with me, I need to work on them more. I hope you've had a nice day, thank you for reading!!


	11. Heros Aren't Meant to Survive

One week later... 

 

"Never pretend to love which you do not actually feel, for love is not ours to command. - Alan Watts." Lance mumbles to himself, sitting in his bed with only a small electric powered lantern lighting up the space around him. He's holding a small book that Keith snuck into their things before they left Earth. He mistakenly put the book in Lance's bag and not his own. It's a book talking about Zen and finding one's self. Why would he want to read a book like that? He's Keith, that's all he needs to be, Lance opened the book and started to read it...this book talked about some deep things, things that Lance never even thought about in his entire life. Not much of it made sense to him, it was so complex...but that one line struck Lance in the gut. He read it over and over; trying to get a different message out of it or a reason of why it shocked him so much. It wasn't until he was so frustrated he almost got up and went over to Keith's lion to ask what it meant when it struck him again.   
"Never pretend to love...what I'm doing...is it wrong?" Lance closes the book and looks down at his hands gripping the book. He likes Keith, he really does, being with him makes him happy, calms him down and excites him at the same time. But, he got with Keith just because he didn't want to hurt him, he wasn't even sure why he kissed him, or even why he felt this way about him. Then, when Keith touched him, kissed him, laid next to him, Lance had that weird feeling in his chest. He loves him right? He's not forcing this? Lance turns off the lantern and puts the book to the side. They're on another bare planet alone, they haven't met any alien locals or Glara, just barren and alone places. Lance used to find peace when it came to being alone, he loved the peace and quiet, that was until recently, when the quiet really did mean utterly alone. He places his head in his hands, none of their messages have been going through to the Altean ship or to their friends, they've been covering miles and miles of space and still ending up with nothing.   
Lance feels so hopeless, so useless, he wants to find his friends and make sure they're safe. What if they're not alive? What if they're wasting their time and they're just beating a broken drum. Why did things have to end up like this? Lance doesn't want to be alone, his body is aching for a touch, for a hug. Before Lance really knew it, he was up and making his way into the red lion, he went through the connecting bridge and into Keith's small bedroom. He is fast asleep, his hair all messy and his shirt twisted up from tossing and turning. His mouth is parted open and the blanket is halfway kicked off of him. It's adorable, is this how he really sleeps? On Earth he was always curled up in a little ball next to Lance. Some of the uneasiness that was stirring up in Lance faded away when he saw Keith, Lance walks up to Keith and climbs across him, gently, not to wake him up. He fixes his blankets and covers them both, then, he fixes Keith's shirt and smoothes it out. He leaves his hand on Keith's slow, deep breathing stomach. Lance yet again reaches up and moves Keith's hair out of his face, this time he trails his thumb across the scar on his right temple.   
Bumpy yet soft, the scar sticks out like a sore thumb on Keith's pale face. Does Keith feel insecure about the scar, Lance wonders. Lance pulls his hand away and touches the scar on his own stomach, his armor really did a number on him during the wreck, cutting his stomach open like that was traumatizing but his scar is pink and smooth.   
"Couldn't sleep?" Keith mumbles as he turns on his side and wraps an arm around Lance.   
"Not at all..." Lance turns his head to the side and stares out the window next to the bed, this planet is always dark, no sunrise or sunset, just night time...they didn't venture out and explore it, because honestly, Lance was too scared. But he said he was tired from the last planet they were on because, while they were exploring it, it started raining glass, fucking glass, they luckily had their armor on and they didn't get hurt but a shard of glass coming in really fast at the right angle could penetrate a helmet and kill one of them, so putting their shields up and running back to their lions after walking around for hours wasn't the most fun thing in the world.   
"I thought you were tired..." Keith lays his head on Lance's chest, Lance wraps his arms around Keith, pulling him closer. Lance loved the fact that Keith acts like a hard, cold, bad ass to others but actually is a book reading, sweet, loving, and a cuddler. He is happy he gets to see this side of Keith....   
"What if...what if all we're doing is for nothing? That it's too late, that everyone is dead and we're the only ones left, what if Princess Allura and Coran didn’t make it and that's why our messages won't send and that's also the reason why the messages won't send to Shiro, Pidge or...Hunk..." Lance closes his eyes, he doesn't want to show emotion. Though, he couldn't help but to express his concerns to Keith.   
"What has gotten you so worked up?" Keith sits up and looks down at Lance who is laying there, with his hands over his face, "Lance, we will find them, we will get back to them and rejoin Voltron once more. Don't give up....." Lance doesn't say anything, Keith sighs, "We have each other, we have our lions, outer space is huge, bigger than we could ever imagine, it will take some time," Keith pulls Lance's hands from his face and holds them, "we'll keep sending video messages, we will search every planet and scan area after area for them, we'll do it until we are old and gray, if that's what it takes." Lance sits up and looks at their combined hands.   
"Old and gray? That’s a long time from now..."   
"And that's okay," Keith leans in and presses his lips against Lance's in a long kiss, Lance's heart pounds and he's lost in the feeling of Keith's lips moving against his. He tastes so sweet, so warm and inviting, he breaks away for a moment, "because, we have each other." Lance touches his forehead against Keith's. He smiles a bit, all his guilt and worries; washed away.   
Lance whispers, "also, because we make a good team..."   
"Exactly, I have your back and you have mine." Keith goes in for another kiss, this time letting go of Lance's hands and wrapping his arms around his neck, Lance places his hands on Keith's sides as he deepens the kiss. Trailing his tongue across Keith's bottom lip, he parts his lips open and lets him in. Lance and Keith's minds are fuzzy and floating in the feeling of being kissed, Lance pushes his hands under Keith's shirt, touching his slightly cold skin. The feeling of Lance's hands on his sides since chills up Keith's spine, he moves his hands to Lance's cheeks, cupping them gently, they break apart for a few seconds for air but Lance is too impatient to let Keith catch up, he gives him a few quicker kisses than before on the lips before moving down to his neck.   
Lance wants to prove that book wrong, that the love he's feeling is real, he could never pretend something like this, this feeling of wanting Keith more and more, not just physically but mentally too. He wants him all to himself, he pushes away every feeling of doubt he has. He shouldn't let his emotions control him, he was just over thinking, he had to of been. Lance is leaving purple and red hickeys all over Keith's neck, he seems to love it. Keith digs his fingers into Lance's soft brown hair, he leans his head back to give him more access. After one or two more hickeys are placed on Keith's shoulder, he decides he wants to give some back. Keith lifts Lance's head up, he moves his head down to Lance's neck and start kissing.   
Lance is a little nervous but most of all excited, especially when Keith begins to lightly suck on his neck, a lot of blood starts flowing to a certain place and he hopes he doesn't ruin the moment....Lance is only acting on what feels like what should come next, he doesn't want this to end. Lance pushes Keith shirt up further and further until Lance is able to pull it completely off, once he does, Keith pulls Lance's shirt off right after. Keith smirks and pins Lance down on his bed, he starts kissing his chest, Lance gasps at the sudden warmth of Keith's lips and tongue. Keith leaves even more hickeys on Lance's chest before he sits up and lightly grazes his fingers drown Lance's stomach. Lance feels as if he's on fire, like Keith set him on fire, he looks Keith over. He's sitting on his lap, with a very obvious bulge right under him, he has his slightly cold hands on Lance's stomach, he's looking down at him, with a new kind of glare, dare he say...lustful kind of glare? Keith was being way "hotter" than Lance could handle, he would rather die than be outdone by Keith. He pushes himself up quickly, startling Keith, he switches their positions, now with Lance on top, Lance presses their bodies together as they go back to kissing. Keith's breath is taken away at how fervorous the situation is getting, he doesn't really know where this is going until Lance positions his waist between Keith's thighs and rubs against him, Keith lets out something that sounded like a moan and a gasp mixed together.   
"Lance...."he gasps. He breaks away from his kiss and leans his head back, this is getting good, too good, he wants more...more...his entire body feels as if its being shaken up by his touch, he closes his eyes and wraps his arms tightly around him, then, the feeling of something shaking him, humming inside him becomes more prominent, he starts to pay attention to it. "wa...wait." He say between heavy breaths, Lance keeps kissing his neck, ignoring him.   
All at once he's hit with a distressing feeling, a feeling coming straight from his lion, he shoots up, "Red, what's wrong??" He calls out, Lance stops and looks at him. His pale skin, damp from their heat mixing together, purple from the hickeys and now tense from news Red just brought him. He jumps out of the bed and pulls a shirt on, Lance follows him out of the room but instead goes to his lion, they both sit down in their command chairs, Blue starts filling Lance in.   
There are Garrison ships not too far off from their location, ships that don't usually come out this far, they're tracking down the lions by using the small location finder thing Lance put together for the Garrison to find what was left of that boy.   
"Shit, what should we do??" Lance jumps up and runs into his room, grabs an extra shirt and pulls it on.   
"Confront them and tell them to fuck off!!" Keith grits his teeth, annoyed. "Do they really not know the situation they're in?? They could get all of Earth enslaved or killed." Lance runs back to his command chair and looks at Keith through the main controls.   
"What if they want to capture us??"   
"Why would they want to do that?" Keith raises an eyebrow, intrigued.   
"I don't know maybe because we were their students that mysteriously disappeared and now probably know stuff that they've been looking for, for years!" Lance moves his arms about as he talks to get across the amount of urgency he's feeling.   
Keith inclines his head in thought, he sees their ships getting closer on his radar, "That may be true..." Keith makes his lion stand up, he looks over at Lance, "Let's give them a run for their money, let's make them come to us and let them try and catch us." Lance nods and readies his lion. The way Keith came up with the plan so quickly and it's so bold and aggressive, made Lance chuckle a bit with a shit eating grin on his face saying "Fuck yeah that's my boyfriend." As they wait for those three Garrison ships to get to their locations, they both suit up and get ready for one hell of a fight.   
"I'm gonna make them wish they never even tried to capture me!!" Lance raises a fist in the air as he sets one foot up on his command chair, standing there trying to look cool.   
"Just sit down and get ready, dork." Keith shakes his head.   
"You're the one that better get ready! Because once we beat these guys, we're gonna pick up where we left off!" He points at the screen and immediately Keith's face turns red.   
"Asshole, sit down." He turns his face away, "they're close." Lance sits down, still smiling, then they hear a very intimidating female voice call out to them.   
"Pilots of the lion robots, surrender!" She calls out.   
"Are those lions?" The other ship calls out.   
"You idiot! Your speaker is on!" The one in the middle says.   
"Yours is too!!" It calls back. Lance looks over at Keith, his face now dull with annoyance.   
"I know how Shiro feels." He mumbles to Keith, Keith smirks, trying to suppress his laughter, this is not the hardcore fight they were expecting.   
"Shut up!" She snaps at the two arguing boys, she sighs and lands her jet in front of the red and blue lions. "surrender yourselves and come out with your hands held high!"   
"So, is there any other ships nearby actually going to attack us, because this has to be a distraction...." Lance looks at Keith who is now frowning in confusion.   
"There isn't....just them." Keith and Lance watch the other two jets land. Then two boys hop out of them in some kind of old looking space suits, they start yelling at each other, then the girl gets out of her jet, stands there looking up at the lions with her hands on her hips. "This is a joke, right?"   
"Why did they get out of their jets? What's with the tacky space suits?" Lance squints as he leans forward in his command chair to look down at the trio. They can't be any older than Keith or Lance, probably the same age, between 16 and 18.   
"Let's just go." Keith huffs.   
"They would probably follow, why not amuse them for a few minutes and we can convince them to just go back to Earth?" Lance shrugs, he leans back in his command chair.   
"Can I grab something to eat first? I'm starved.." Keith gets up.   
"Oooo yeah, get an extra spoon, I'm hungry too~" Lance hums and gets up as well. Lance walks out first.   
"PUT YOUR HANDS UP!" The girls yells, Lance ignores her.   
"Blue, shields up please." He looks up at Blue and she puts up her shields, "Thank you." He looks over and sees Keith come out of his lion with a can of space goo and two spoons, Lance walks over to him and takes the can, prying it open.   
"Shield, Red, Thanks..." Keith murmurs and looks over at the girl. "You alright? Why are your eyes closed?" He tilts in head to the side in interest. When she opens her eyes and sees the two paladins standing in front of her eating some weird looking green goo, she jumps back and stares at them. She lowers the small handgun she has.   
"You two are..." Her eyes are wide, "Lance and Keith." The boys stop arguing off to the side and walk over.   
"Lance as in one of the student that went missing six months ago?" The taller of the two boys asks, he looks at Lance, Lance blinks back a few times, unamused as he shoves a spoon full of goo into his mouth. "Who is he?" He speaks up again as he looks over at the short girl who has been staring at Keith since she's opened her eyes.   
"Keith." She huffs, crossing her arms and looking away. Lance laughs and points at Keith.   
"She hates you!"   
"Shut up." Keith rolls his eyes, "You see, you guys need to go back to Earth, alright?"   
"No! We're here to bring you back!" The shorter boy butts in.   
"We know that but, it's dangerous out here for you three, you should just give up on this, this is bigger than you can imagine." Keith shoves his spoon back into the can and lets Lance finish it off.   
"We will take you kicking and screaming if we have to!" She raises her gun again, Keith sighs and takes the can of food out of Lance's hand and Lance snaps her wrist back, not hurting it, and takes the gun out of her hand and unloads it. "Give that back!" The other two raise their guns and points it at them, Lance takes back the can of goo and continues to eat, Keith takes the gun and the guns ammo, and stomps on the ammo. Destroying the laser ammo inside the canister.   
"Do you three know how close you are to Galra territory?? You're gonna get yourselves killed out here! If it was easy for Lance of all people to get that gun away from you then you are not even close to be ready to face what's out here!!" Keith rants.   
"Hey!" Lance crosses his arms, Keith tosses her gun back and shakes his head.   
"What is Galra?" The taller boy asks.   
"Aliens! Aliens that are out here that have no mercy!" Keith rubs his eyes, "I can't do this, we don't have time for this, just go back to Earth before you die and cause even more trouble..." Keith slouches his shoulders.   
"We have been assigned a mission and we will carry it out!" The girl crosses her arms, "I will not go back empty handed!"   
"What kind of assignment?" Lance says with a mouth full of food.   
"See if the transmitter locates the ones who made it! And check out a planet that have been giving off static!" The shorter boy states as if he's reciting something he's repeated a thousand times to remember. Lance nods and sets the can sets the can down gently on the ground. "You must really of studied who we are, by the way..." Lance stretches his arms up in the air. The girl starts to stutter "what" but Lance continues anyways, "Well, since this planet is constantly at night, I can barely see your face, so you must really know our faces."   
"W-well! Your face was plastered everywhere after you disappeared!"   
"And Keith's?" Lance adds in, "How do you know him?"   
"He...He well..."   
"She obsessed over him while he was in the Garrison, Keith this, Keith that! Keith would do this! Keith would do that! Keith is the best because of this and this! God, it didn't stop until he dropped out!!" The taller boy sighs and rolls his eyes.   
"I didn't drop out..." Keith mumbles and crosses his arms, the longer he's standing there the more frustrated he is with dealing with these kids. "Lance can we just go?"   
"I wanna know about the static planet!" He smirks, wrapping his arm around Keith's shoulder and pulling him to him.   
"No, we need to make them go home." Keith shoves Lance away, Lance pouts.   
"Why do you care about the static planet?" The taller boy asks.   
"I don't know, nothing really exciting has happened recently so there may be something there, where is the static planet?"   
"Why would we tell you!" The girl yells. Lance looks at the small girl and thinks for a moment.   
"Well, if you take us to the planet, we'll give ourselves up!" He smiles, Keith starts to protest but Lance covers his mouth with his hand. She looks at them for a moment, Lance keeps smiling.   
"What will stop you from running off?" Lance's smile gets bigger, more cynical.   
"You can take Keith with you as we fly over there." He offers, Keith pushes his hand off.   
"And what if she flies off with me?!" Keith throws up his arms.   
"She might do that..." The smaller boy adds in. Lance losses his smile and looks down on the girl.   
"Trust me, she is smarter than to fly off with Keith next to her if she really does know a lot about him~" Lance pushes Keith towards the girl, Keith looks back at him and glares.   
"Fine, we'll take you to the static planet, but after you're coming back with us! We probably would have to do that anyways!" She turns on her heel and storms back to her jet.   
"Hasta la later, Keith!!" Lance calls out, trying not to laugh, Keith spins around and flicks him off and gets in the small jet with the girl. Lance smiles at him, and runs back into his lion, he gets in his command chair, now with a completely serious tone to himself, he raises blue up in the air, picks Red up and follows the jets. His eyes targeted down on the jet Keith is in. He knows Keith is more than capable of taking care of himself, and that if she tries anything sneaky he would knock her out and take control of the jet with ease but, he still is protective over him. 

Keith sits next to the smaller girl, arms crossed in annoyance, in his head he's calling Lance every name in the book.   
"Why did you leave the Garrison?" She asks. Keith looks over at her.   
"I didn't leave it, they kicked me out." He responds coldly, it falls silent for a few moments again before she speaks up.   
"I looked up to you not because I have a crush on you because you look like someone I used to know..." She puts the jet in autopilot for a few seconds as she takes off what looks like a very uncomfortable helmet. Her dark red hair falls around her face, barely stopping at her shoulders. She goes back to flying with ease, "My cousin, he...nevermind." She shakes her head. Keith suddenly feels very awkward, is she trying to have a moment with him? He looks away, trying to find something else to busy his mind with. Keith looks at the serial code of the jet on the dashboard....almost the same numbers as the one the boy was flying...the boy...   
"What's your name?" Keith asks.   
"Why do you care?" She snaps back.   
"You know mine. So...I should know yours."   
"Apryl..." She huffs and blows her bangs out of her face. Keith nods.   
"Having a nice time??" Lance says through Keith's helmet.   
"Shut up, Lance." He says back, the girls looks over at him.   
"What??" She asks in confusion.   
"My helmet, Lance can...nevermind, what were you trying to say before??" Keith feels compelled to ask.   
"It's not a big deal, forget about it." She grips the steering wheel harder.   
"Okay...." Keith mumbles back. After a few more minutes of them flying, they are above an ashy gray looking planet. The surface is covered in a thin layer of dusty looking clouds.   
"There it is..." She nods towards it and begins to land.   
"Woah, don't you want to check to see if it's safe first??" Keith looks down at the planet's surface that's becoming clearer and clearer.   
"Keith...this isn't a safe place." Lance speaks up.   
"Breathable?"   
"No." Lance sighs, "We shouldn't land." Keith activates full helmet mode.   
"Apryl, this planet isn't safe, we shouldn't land here." Keith tries to tell her.   
"Oh and how do you know that??"   
"Because Lance probably scanned it and saw-" Keith cuts himself off when he sees the surface of the planet clearer now. The place is completely torn apart, like a battle recently took place, all the structures have been blown up and destroyed....not just any structures but Galra tech. "I can't let you land here, we need to get out of here."   
"We have to come here, it's part of our mission!" She huffs, being stubborn. Keith grits his teeth, he doesn't want to lead them into something dangerous, they won't be able to handle themselves if any Galra was left here.... they land on the smoky planet, Keith let's her get her helmet on before he jumps out and makes a run for his lion. "HEY!!!" She yells, Keith boards his lion, he runs into the cockpit and scans for Galra life near them.   
"I didn't get anything but I scanned before we landed." Lance tells Keith. Keith scans anyways, nothing. Nothing as in, the scan won't go through, all the smoke in the air and the different vibrations the broken Galra tech is giving off, is cutting off their ability to scan the area around them effectively.   
"I can't get anything either...." Keith sighs and looks at Lance, "we have to get them out of here, this is a disaster waiting to happen but I doubt they'll listen to us..."   
"Maybe we can give them a reason to leave?"   
"We're not going back with them." Keith crosses his arms.   
"I wasn't planning on it, I just curious of what this place was...." Lance thinks, "hey...." He starts but the girl down below starts screaming at them again about how they are breaking their promise.   
"What?" Keith asks.   
"Who do you think did this to the Galra? Maybe...Hunk, Pidge or Shiro??" Lance looks at Keith, his eyes full of hope.   
"Could've been Princess Allura or Coran too...We don't know anyone else fighting the Galra..so maybe." He smiles. Lance and Keith are filled to the brim with hope, "maybe the way things are destroyed we could figure out which lion did it??" Keith sounds so eager.   
"Could the lions scan to which one did?"   
"If the life scan won't work then I doubt that can..." Keith chews on his bottom lip a bit as he looks over his controls.   
"HEEEYYYY!" Apryl shoots at the red lion, Keith snaps his head to the side, to look down at her, anger flows through him.   
"Let's go talk to them.." Lance activates full helmet, and walks out of his lion, so does Keith.   
"What the fuck was that for??" Keith yells, tempted to grab his bayard.   
"You were hiding in your lion!"   
"Hiding????" Keith grits his teeth, why is she so....so...annoying??? Lance touches Keith's arm to calm him down.   
"Let's look around." Lance and Keith let the two boys walk behind them and the girl walk a little bit in front of them. Those three think Lance and Keith are unarmed, they don’t have any idea about their bayards so they keep their weapons to their sides, not seeing any reason to keep a gun on them.   
"This is definetly Galra tech." Keith goes up to a building, where the entire top half looks like its been cleanly lasered off. He pushes open the loose hanging door and peaks in. "This looks important..."Keith steps in and there's rows and rows of computers in the building.   
"I wish Pidge was here..." Lance pouts, "they could hack into the computers and we could see what's on them." He walks closely behind Keith. He hits the keyboards of every computer as they walk down every row, seeing if any of them wakes up. The three other kids stand at the entrance watching them.   
"Hey, this one came on!" Keith bends over the table a bit, looking at the slightly messed up screen, "Looks like a map?" Keith looks at a map of what looks like nearby planets, some are dotted red while others are still blue. Lance places a hand on Keith's back, leaning down to look at the computer.   
"Planets they've enslaved and the ones they haven't, maybe?" He suggests.   
"Probably....I wonder if it's up to date...." He stands up straight, looking at Lance study the map.   
"Maybe? Who knows, I can't read their language." Lance shrugs and stands up. He looks at Keith and smiles. Keith gives him a small smile back.   
"Let's keep looking..." Keith walks back to the three standing at the door. He politely steps past them and they keep walking around the area but never too far away from the lions. Most of what's left is torn to bits, nothing useful at all, whoever destroyed this place, really made sure everything was in pieces. They start walking back to their lions, Keith has been studying all the damage, he thinks he can make a guess on who did this but is afraid to say his name in front of Apryl and the other two...he should ask for their names.   
"Are we done here?" Apryl asks. Keith looks at Lance, he can see the gears in his head working, he's coming up with something else. Keith can't help but wonder why she asked them if they were done, isn't she the captain of her little crew and they are their prisoners...   
"Not sure..." Lance looks at Keith, "are you thinking of the same person as me?" Keith doesn't want to say "Shiro" so he raises his hand up in the air to show Shiro's height and then places his hands on his hips and tries to look all buff with pushing his chest out. "Yeah! And don't forget..."Lance! Quit it! Keith leave Lance alone! Lance get down from there! Keith put the sword down! Blah blah blah!"" Lance laughs, Keith chuckles a bit.   
"What are you two doing?" Apryl asks impatiently.   
"Uhhhh, I wanted to ask you...what are-" Keith starts.   
"Keith look!" Lance grabs Keith's shoulder and shakes it. Keith looks over and sees a flashing purple light in the distance that wasn't there before.   
"Shit, okay, now we really need to get out of here, uh, let's go back to that other planet so we can hash this out!" Keith offers, he's anxious, that could be a sign of Galra life and they might be heading this way but, Keith wants to be wrong, he really wants to be wrong.   
"No! We had a deal, now surrender and get in a jet!" She grabs her gun, then realizing she doesn't have any ammo, she groans and throws it down, "I'll fight you if I have to!" She raises her fists, Keith keeps glancing in between her and the growing purple light.   
"We really don't have time to fuck around, we really need to get out of here!" Keith tells her.   
"Then just get in the jet!" She yells.   
"We can't leave our lions behind! No, Let's just get out of here." Keith's heart is racing, what happens if he lets someone else down again, what if someone gets hurt?? He grabs the girl and drags her to her jet and throws her in. He's about to run and help get the smaller boy of the two off of Lance who Is trying to stop Lance from throwing the taller boy into his jet when, she grabs his wrist and handcuffs him to her. "What are you doing?!" He yanks on the handcuff.   
"You're coming with me!!" She tries to pull him in, he pushes her away from him and pulls out his bayard and takes his sword out. "Woah! Where did you have that??? What?!" She yells in confusion, Keith cuts the handcuff off and runs towards Lance, he pulls the younger boy off of him. The younger boy gets out of his hold and points his gun at him. Keith looks over at the purple light that is now even closer, he can see a vehicle in the smoky distance.   
"Oh no, Lance." Keith sees the vehicle speed up as they probably recognized the lions. Lance looks over after he's finally shoved the boy into his jet, Apryl runs up and snatches the gun from the smaller boy and puts it to the back of Keith's head.   
"Don't move!!" She sounds scared out of her mind. Lance sees what Apryl is doing and he almost jolts forward until Keith shakes his head. Lance's eyes are wide, his heart is pounding, she wouldn't shoot, would she??   
"We need to get out of here, Apryl, that vehicle coming up isn't going to treat us nicely." Keith calmly says.   
"I was trying but you wouldn't go!!"   
"If those guys get a hold of our lions then you can kiss your future goodbye!!" Lance speaks up, he's itching to snap that gun out of her hand or shoot it out if that’s what it takes.   
"We can take out a simple car! C'mon!" The taller boy jumps out of his jet and loads his gun. The vehicle comes right up on them, a crowd of Galra, no a small army of Galra jump out of the back of this vehicle and charges at them. The taller boy runs around his jet and starts shooting at them, taking one or two out before they start firing. Keith shoves the girl back, she fires into the air and Keith brings out his shield and protects them from the fire, Lance does the same with the smaller boy.   
"ZEKE!!!" Apryl screams. The taller boy, Zeke, falls to the ground, he was shot through many, many times before hitting the hard ground.   
"No...." Keith whispers, he grabs the girl and shoves her in her jet once more, "GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE THIS TIME!"   
"B-but, Zeke.."   
"GO!" He runs back to Lance who just put the smaller crying boy in his jet, Keith slices through the Galra near Lance, protecting him until he's able to shoot down the ones near them, they make a run for their lions. Apryl and the small boy fly off, Keith and Lance get in their lions. They easily destroy the small army on the ground in one blow, "dammit, dammit Lance!"   
"Wha-" he starts.   
"Not again!!! How can we protect the galaxy if we can't even protect one person?!!!" Keith yells, he flies out of the atmosphere of the planet as fast as he can, Lance is speechless. They are met with Apryl and the smaller boy outside of the planet, Keith leads them back to the planet they were on before and lands. He rips off his helmet and throws it. He holds his head in his hands.   
"Keith..." Lance speaks up, Keith doesn't say anything, "Keith, they probably want to talk to us." Lance doesn't know what to say, he feels like shit too but they did save two lives...if only they listened, if only they weren't so damn naïve and stubborn.   
"Okay..." Keith stands up and walks out of his lion, Lance goes up to him, he wants to hug him, to hold him and tell him it's okay but a angry Apryl is already coming up to them.   
"You-You!!" She starts.   
"We were the ones wrong." The smaller boy speaks up, tears still evident on his face.   
"Daulton..." She looks over at him.   
"We didn't listen when they said to get out of there, if we did...Zeke would be...It's our faults, Apryl!" He grabs her by the shoulders, "let's just go back home, I don't want to be out here anymore..." He pulls her into a hug. Lance uses this time to reach his hand over and wrap his pinky around Keith's. Keith slides his hand into Lance's and holds it firmly.   
"O-okay." She says through thick sobs. She looks back at Keith and Lance, "We...We won't say anything about you two..." She sniffs, "I'm sorry we caused you so much...much trouble." She covers her mouth and sobs again. Daulton takes her back to her jet and calms her down. Lance and Keith stand there until they both get in their jets and fly off. Once they're out of the atmosphere, Lance takes his helmet off, he grabs Keith, pulls him into his arms and hugs him as tight as he can.   
"This isn't your fault, don't you dare blame this on yourself, you did all you could do." Keith holds onto Lance, leaning his forehead against his armor.   
"Why does someone always have to die?" Keith slides his hands down Lance's sides.   
"I don't know, I don't know, but it's over with now."Lance kisses the top of Keith head a few times. Lance pulls Keith onto Red and makes him take off his armor as he does the same. Lance pulls on some sweatpants but Keith just falls back on to his bed in his underwear.   
"Can we stay on this planet for a little while longer?" He asks, his voice sounds weak.   
"What if the Galra track us down?" Lance sits down on the bed, Keith lays on his back and sighs.   
"Then we can take them out for Zeke." Lance gets under the covers with Keith and holds Keith as close as possible.   
"Sounds good to me." Lance mumbles, he runs his fingers up and down Keith's back for a while, Keith is laying half way on top of Lance, his head on his chest, staring out the window. As Lance rubs his back, he notices a few spots Keith would tense up at when touched, he also took notice of how soft his skin is and how his spine felt under his fingers. Lance has his eyes closed, listening to Keith's breathing, he finally fell asleep after about an hour of Lance calming him down. Lance stops moving his hand and opens his eyes, on the small overhang above the bed, Keith has pictures...pictures he remembers taking with the camera before they left Earth. When did he print those out? There's one of Lance sitting by the ocean, another of Lance shoving garlic knots in his mouth, another of the ocean itself and the last one of the Christmas lights around his ceiling. "You're such a hopeless romantic...." Lance whispers and kisses Keith head once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always listen to "chillstep" when writing, I also feel like this chapter is rushed even tho I took a few days on this?? idk. Thank you reading.


	12. Peace...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 18+ warning, smut lmao edit: I'm writing the next part right now, this one will be a bit long and i want to make sure it's up to par, thank you for your patience.

Two weeks later.... 

 

Lance and Keith are sitting on a planet that looks a lot like the jungle planet that Pidge found their lion on, but of course they wouldn't know that. They spent the day riding around in a small boat they found on the bank near their lions, exploring the humid planet. Although they've made their mission for each planet is to try to find some locals to help or the locals could inform them if they've seen any other lions recently....but this trip mostly turned into them taking photos and Lance almost capsizing the boat every ten minutes. They eventually found a small dock to dock their boat for awhile, Keith is laying on the old wooden dock, looking through their photos, there's some of Keith, some of Lance and a lot of the jungle and the animals there.  
"Did you buy a purple camera on purpose?" Keith hands the camera to Lance.  
"No?" Lance places the camera gently into their bag. He zips the bag up and places it to the side.  
"Huh, well, I thought you did because y'know, red and blue..." Keith mumbles, trying not to blush. Lance sees the potential for a romantic moment, he straightens up and smiles.  
"Oh! That's what you meant! Yeah, of course I did. Aren't I the most romantic guy ever?" Lance strokes his chin and smirks.  
"Probably the most pretentious...." Keith closes his eyes and lets the sun hit his face.  
"Yeah?! Well, you're not Mr. Suave either!" Lance huffs, crosses his arms and looks away. Keith lets out a small laugh and smiles.  
"You still suck at comebacks, we'll work on it." Keith pushes his fringe out of his face. Lance looks back over at him, he's still laying on his back, his shirt sticking to his sweat covered skin, his cheeks slightly red, his black hair pushed back from his face. The water behind him sparkling, it's like a fucking scene out of a cheesy romance movie and Lance is loving every second of it. He scrambles for the camera, he yanks it out of the bag and takes photos of Keith.  
"Do you think our lions have printers??" Lance puts the camera up once again and this time going over to Keith. He lays on his stomach next to him, Keith turns his head to the side and cracks his eyes open.  
"No, I don't think so...." Keith rolls over to his side, "but I do know that we're getting into Galra territory pretty heavily now... these..trips I guess, probably won't happen anymore." Lance is skimming his fingers across the cold, dark blue water, Keith is right, at night now, they take turns staying up to make sure they're not ambushed. Also, they can't sleep in the same bed, just in case the Galra tries to take one of the lions, Lance sighs and turns on to his side to face Keith. Keith gives him a smile, one that's filled with worry but is trying to stay positive. Lance closes his eyes as Keith reaches out and touches his cheek.  
"I know, I'm not looking forward to it. Plus every now and again I'll get Garrison signals on my radar too...they're really venturing out here now," he lays his hand on top of Keith's, "do you think Apryl and Daulton said something?" He can feel Keith's hand tense up a bit from the mentioning of their names. He internally kicks himself for bringing it up.  
"I hope not... the Garrison getting into this will definitely bring more attention towards Earth and the surrounding planets..." Keith sighs, he knows he should get over Zeke...there's nothing he could've done to save him but it's an innocent life... he shouldn't of died. What if Apryl has some kind of vendetta against them now? What if she went back and told the truth? Or even worse, lied and made them sound bad? What were they to do then when the Garrison turned against them? They can't fight Galra and the Garrison at the same time!  
"I shouldn't of brought it up....." Lance mumbles, he watches Keith for a few more moments, he can tell he's over thinking, "Keith, stop worrying over it... Keith, c'mon." He doesn't listen to him. He gets up a bit to hover over Keith. He leans down and kisses him, bringing him out of his funk. "If you keep worrying about it you'll turn gray." Keith looks up at him shocked.  
"Will not!" He touches his hair in concern.  
"Yeah! You will! Look! I think I see some strands right here!" Lance lies as he touches some strands of Keith's hair. Keith pouts as Lance teases him. Keith slides down a bit, using Lance as a shield from the sun, Lance wants to make a smart remark but it was just too cute to yell at. Lance moves his fingers down to traces his fingers across Keith's scar.  
"Ugly, isn't?" He mumbles.  
"No, you look bad ass just like Shiro!" Lance smiles, cupping his cheek. Keith is blushing furiously now.  
"we should get back to the lions." Keith clutches on to the sides of Lance's shirt, "we've been away from them long enough." Lance smirks.  
"And we'll work on your flirting." He leans down and kisses Keith one more time before getting up. 

Keith gets in the boat, he holds his hand out and helps Lance in as well. Keith pushes them away from the dock and out on to the water. Lance picks up his paddle and helps push them along. He watches Keith in front of him. His gray shirt is stuck against his skin, he can see his shoulder blades move as he paddles. He moves his head to the side and looks back at Lance.  
"I can feel you staring. What's wrong?"  
"You." He starts paddling faster, blushing.  
"Eh?" He tries to keep up with his paddling. 

They get back to the lions in no time, thanks to Lance's furious paddling. They get out of the boat, Keith goes to Lance and holds his hand. It was fine with Lance until Keith pulled up the bottom of his shirt to wipe the sweat from his face. Lance got a full view of Keith's torso, still covered in hickeys, thanks to Lance, and covered in sweat.  
"We should put up our things and wash off in the water..." Lance stares at Keith's chest even after he pulls his shirt down.  
"Sure." Keith shrugs and starts walking to their lions. Lance rubs his eyes with his free hand. After Lance threw their bag into Blue, he rushed back to Keith; he was taking off his shirt. He grabs Keith, he picks him up, "What are you doing?!" He protests as he's slung over Lance's shoulder.  
"You need to cool off."  
"I can walk!" He struggles a bit. Before he knows it, he's thrown into the water. "AH" he splashes into the cold water, it feels good against his hot skin. He pops up out of the water, he tries his best to get towards the bank, where he can touch the ground. Keith can't swim, and he would rather die than tell Lance that. Luckily for Keith every other time they've bathed in a pond, he could touch the bottom and he chose how far out he would go. He didn't know Lance would be an idiot and throw him. Lance jumps in, splashing water in his face and having waves push him further into the water. Keith tenses up, he can't feel the bottom, not even if he stretches his foot down.. He tries his best to keep his head above the water, he kicks his feet and moves his arms, he keeps trying to back to the bank, his heart is pounding into his ears. Then, he feels a pair of arms wrap around his torso and lift him up. He looks down and sees Lance smiling up at him.  
"You were too hot, you needed to chill..." He lets go of Keith, he reaches out and grabs on to Lance's shoulders. Keith's grip on him is strong, Lance notices this, he laughs a bit, "can you swim?"  
"Y-yeah!" Keith hesitates to let go, Lance wraps his arms back around Keith, he kisses him.  
"No you can't." He gets them back to shallow water, Keith relaxes when his feet touches the ground, and when he doesn't feel mud or sand squish between his toes, he remembers he's still wearing his shoes.  
"I'm still wearing my shoes! Lance!"  
"They'll dry..." He still has Keith in his arms, he pulls him closer, kissing him.  
"What's gotten into you?" Keith says between kisses.  
"It's your fault, you and your dumb looks." He pulls away and kisses his slightly salty skin on his neck.  
"Dumb?" Keith has never felt this confused and aroused at the same time. He touches Lance's bare chest, as he starts to suck on his neck. "L-Lance..." He moves his head back and looks up at the clear sky. He moves his head back down as he tangles his fingers into Lance's hair, he pulls his head up and kisses him. Both of them running out of breath, lost in their own desire of wanting more and more. Lance picks Keith up, he wraps his legs around Lance's torso. Lance walks them out of the water and back to the lions, so much for washing off. Lance get's on to blue, Keith hops off of Lance, Lance leads him into his room. Keith peels off his wet shoes and socks, Lance peels off Keith's pants, right then Keith knew where this is going. He backs up onto his bed and sits down. Lance straddles him, placing his hands on Keith's jaw, to bring his face up for a kiss. He pushes his tongue in, Keith hooks his thumbs under the waistband of Lance's sweatpants and pulls them down half way. Lance lays Keith down, he pulls his pants the rest of the way off. Keith's heart is pounding, he can't believe this is happening, his eyes widen when he sees Lance's bulge through his underwear. He goes back down on Keith, kissing once more, positioning his waist between Keith's thighs. Lance's mind is fuzzy, he doesn't know what he's thinking, but the way Keith's thighs feel when he squeezes them against his waist is amazing. He's loving the way he's touching him all over and how sloppy and impatient their kisses are.  
"Can we? Keith?" Lance pulls away from him, looking down at Keith's flushed face, he's breathing heavy, Keith knows they should be watching their backs for Galra or other life forms but..but he wants this, he nods. Lance pulls down Keith's underwear, Keith lets his boxers drop off of his feet and on to the floor, Lance is blushing just as hard as Keith now. He gently touches Keith's thighs, his muscles flex under his touch, he slowly moves his hand down to his hard member. He takes it into his hand, Keith gasps a bit and bites his lip. Lance strokes it a bit, he swallows, he's never done anything like this before but he knows what he's generally supposed to do. He doesn't have lube, of course, so he wets his fingers by using his spit, he looks at Keith and he just nods, he pushes one finger in Keith, he tightens up, he gasps. It's so uncomfortable and weird for Keith. He closes his eyes as he fingers him. He gets two fingers in before Keith is relaxed and used to the feeling. Lance gets back on top of Keith, he pulls his member out and pushes his tip into him. Keith's back arches up, Lance wraps his arm underneath Keith, he kisses his neck. "Calm down, relax." He's so tight around him, he can't go in any further.  
"Okay...okay..." He slowly relaxes, he wraps his arms around Lance as he eases himself inside of him. Eventually they set up a nice pace, Keith gets comfortable with the feeling and goes back to kissing Lance. Lance reaches even deeper inside of Keith as he relaxes, and he hits something that makes Keith moan, he doesn't sound like himself at all. His mind goes blank and his limbs feel weak there for a few seconds. He comes back to, he looks at a shocked Lance, "again." He kisses him, he keeps hitting it over and over, Keith sounds so hot, Lance goes even faster, he feels so good, so so good, Keith can't even think right now, his entire body is dripping with pleasure. He starts to moan Lance's name. The heat between them is almost unbearable, Keith reaches down to stroke his own member, he barely touches it before he cums on himself and Lance. Lance pulls out and strokes himself until he cums as well. He sits back, trying to catch his breath.  
"That... That was amazing." He looks at Keith, he's breathing hard as well, but he looks exhausted. He's also covered in their cum, he grabs one of their discarded pants and wipes it off of him, he lays down next to him, Keith immediately turns over and cuddles against him.  
"I wanna say something but I'm afraid it's too soon so, can we just lay here for a while?" Keith leans his head against Lance's chest, he's never felt that good before, the way Lance held him and touched him, the way he made him feel, it was all so amazing.  
"Sure..." Lance wraps an arm around his boyfriend and kisses his head. Keith feels that warm sensation in his chest again, its spreading throughout his whole being, he gets as close as he can to Lance, never wanting to let go. Soon enough Keith falls asleep, Lance can tell by the way his breath hits his chest. Lance gets up and covers him up, he moves the hair out of his face and kisses his cheek. He gets halfway dressed before he remembers he left his shirt outside, Keith's is out there too. He goes outside and picks up their clothes, he goes back on to Blue, he gets all their wet clothes. He drapes his wet pants and underwear on his command chair to dry. He walks over to Keith's to do the same, once he neatly lays his clothes and shoes out to dry, he spots something on his dashboard. He goes over to it, he can't believe it, he touches the dead flower crown gently, not wanting it to fall apart. "He kept it?" Lance smiles, seeing it filled him up with joy. He walks back over to Blue and goes to the dashboard, he scans for Galra and the Garrison. Nothing, yet. He rubs his bare chest and yawns, he should sleep too but... someone has to watch over the lions...  
Lance sits down in his chair about an hour passes before he decides to make a video message, they haven't made one in a while, he turns on the camera. "Lance, here. Uh, things have been going well, no Galra or Garrison in about a day or two. Uhhh, food is good, along with water. When Keith wakes up we're probably going to go to the next safe planet to stay the night." Lance rubs his eyes, "Can't wait, I'm so tired." He chuckles a bit, "whoever gets this, I hope you're doing well like Keith and I are and-" Lance gets cut off.  
"Why are you filming that half naked?" Keith butts in, he walks in shot, with his underwear on, wrapped in a blanket.  
"WHERE'S YOUR CLOTHES????" Lance pushes Keith away.  
"They can see your hickeys you know." He smirks, Lance's face turns red, he grabs his wet pants off the back of his chair and throws them at Keith, Keith laughs. "Send message!!!" Keith calls out and it sends. Lance's face drains color, looks from where the video message was to Keith.  
"They're gonna know now!!!" Lance throws himself back in the chair.  
"So???" Keith climbs into his lap. 

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Coran is pacing back and forth, waiting for the computers to dissect a part of the weird video message they got when on the main controls, a notification pops up of a few incoming messages. He goes to play them. Yet again, from the blue lion and also, the date on them is from a few months ago.  
"Lance here."….the video plays, Coran's eyes widen when he sees the markings on Lance's chest, he also wonders why he isn't wearing a shirt and then in comes Keith. His eyes widen at the scene in front of him.  
"What an interesting friendship."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a bit shorter than the last two but i decided to write something lighter for the upcoming holidays. Expect the second part/ next chapter sometime after christmas, the 25th, happy holidays and thank you for reading :)


	13. ...Before the storm

One week later....   
Yet again the couple is on another planet but this time they're heavily in Galra territory. For the past three days they've been non stop fighting until they came across a planet that looks straight out of a Willy Wonka factory. The ground is pink with yellow roads swirling around, the bushes are bright green with a cotton candy like texture, the entire place looked delectable before Lance tried to eat one of the bushes....a local of the candy-like planet jumped out and shoved him away from the bush. Keith drew his sword ready to fight the alien when they started shouting "poison, poison!" Over and over while pointing at the bush.   
That's how Lance and Keith met the locals of planet, "Braunerova". They ranged in sizes from about two feet tall, to twelve feet tall. Their bodies all looked similar in shape though, a human-like shape, slender with long arms. Their skin was the most amazing thing though, they were swirled with pastel colors, giving their skin a shiny marble like look. Those colors are the way to tell each one apart, other than that, they're identical (if they're the same height). Knowing that they can't stray too far from their lions and for too long, they cautiously follow the small creature to its "village". The village is busy and full of "Braunerovians". As soon as Keith and Lance walked into the bustling place, it stopped, almost immediately, everyone turned and faced them. They don’t usually get visitors, luckily for our paladins, the Brunerovians are very peaceful people. Within a matter of a few minutes, they are brought up to a garden area filled with alien flowers, which was the barrier between the local that brought Keith and Lance here and to what looked like the ruler of the people here.   
"What bring you to our planet, creatures?" An old looking ruler spoke up, his voice was raspy probably from years of smoking the pipe he is holding in his hand. His hands were wrinkly and dull, along with the rest of his body. Keith mentally wished he didn't notice right then that none of the locals on this planet didn't wear clothes. On the other hand, Lance was kind of curious of what a female looks like here, he wouldn't dare say that out loud though, he'd rather not have one of Keith's knives stabbed through him. Lance almost wanted to chuckle at the thought of Keith jealous but then again that probably wouldn't be funny and they're kind of in front of someone of importance.   
"We are Paladins of Voltron and we are on a mission not only to find our friends but to destroy the Galra empire and help other planets." Keith speaks up, this is the first time he had to ever formally introduce himself to someone, the old man took a drag from his pipe and puffed out some purple smoke, he studied the two armored boys in front of him. He chuckles and coughs a bit.   
"Are you alright??" Lance slightly steps forward concerned that he was choking.   
"Yes, child, yes." He waved him off and he took another drag from his pipe, he slowly stood up and walked through the small garden pathway and up to Lance and Keith. "Follow me." He waddled his way through the town and into an extravagant home compared to the other houses they passed. He opened the door and let them in, he followed in behind them and showed them into a large dining hall, they cut through there and into a throne area. Keith was starting to get nervous, they've been gone from their lions too long in heavy Galra territory like they are in right now. "Take a seat and we will talk." He motions to a few large cushions on the floor, Lance sits down first, on a light red pillow, crossing his legs and taking off his helmet, his wavy brown hair sticks up in different spots from his helmet, Keith almost reaches out to touch it before he's reminded that he's on a mission here. He shakes his head and sits down on a light blue cushion and takes off his helmet, then fixes his probably messy hair. By the time they're both settled, the old man finally gets to his throne and he sits down. He is given a hookah-like device, he takes the long pipe and smokes from the tip on the end.   
Keith nor Lance know what to say, they don’t want to speak out of turn, they look at each other for a second and then back at the man in front of them. He finally speaks up.   
"Your lions are safe on this planet, friends." He continues to puff out smoke.   
"How did you know about our lions??" Lance leans forward, shocked, he stares up at the now grinning man on his throne.   
"Your friend, Pidge, they were here. Many moons ago, when your friend appeared in our sky, we were frightened! We've never seen anything like that before, it was certainly nothing from the Galra. So, we let it in, your friend and their lion, we greeted Pidge at their lion and questioned them." He coughs a bit.   
"Pidge... you saw Pidge!! Where did they go??" Keith speaks up, excitedly.   
"Your friend left after we gave them the information of the troublesome Galra nearby, your friend has solved our problem and for that, we are grateful to you paladins." He nodded and finally put down the hookah pipe.   
"Your problem what was it?" Lance asks.   
"There recently have been a lot more Galra activity around our planet, they keep threatening to take us over if we do not surrender, before your friend arrived, we were almost at the brink of despair, there was too many of them to fight off with our one singular weapon, so Pidge gladly took a large chunk of them out. But your friend..." He gets up and looks out of a window that probably looks over his people below. The light shined into the throne room, giving the pastel covered room a soft look, easily one of the most beautiful moments Keith and Lance have ever seen, the mixture of colors all over the walls and the way the ruler's skin glowed in the sunlight. The room was hazy with smoke, sweet smelling smoke. It hung in the air with a pink tint to it. "your friend left without giving us a proper report of what happened or for us to thank them properly. You said you were looking for your friends?" He turns and faces them both. The sunlight only hitting on side of his face now.   
"Yes, we were separated and we are trying to reunite but none of our messages to one another have been getting through." Keith nods and grips the cushion beneath him, this is the first time they've actually been confirmed to be somewhere where their friends have been as well.   
"When you finally reunite with your friends....please give Pidge our thanks and tell them that one day soon they are welcome come back so we may thank them properly." He walks back to his throne.   
"We will... thank you for taking care of Pidge." Keith bows his head a bit and looks back up when Lance adds in,   
"When you said you only had one weapon, why only one? Having more than one will help you defend yourself even more!"   
"We do not believe in violence and war, our weapon is strong and powerful enough to take out any unwelcome visitors." He informs him. Lance nods and thinks about that for a moment before speaking up again.   
"Is it a giant gun that shoots down ships??"   
"Something like that yes but I fear, that since we have attacked so many ships that they will send even more than before, many of our neighboring planets that we used to have alliances with have been taken over by the Galra, we are the only ones left to conquer....I hate to say it, but our odds, they are not on our favor." He sighs and clasps his worn down hands together, "I have been here through the rise and fall of this planet and I will not accept to fall once more, but we are not the people to attack others, my people are not breed for that. All we want is to lead peaceful lives, to be able to love all and have nothing to fear but these days our optimism is low and each day I can feel our freedom grow smaller with every invading ship." He looks down at Keith and Lance, in his eyes he sees two brave warriors willing to protect the galaxy but with his powers he can sense them as two young children, hopelessly in love at the wrong time. "On behalf of my people and I, King Etzan, will ask upon you two paladins to help ward off the Galra in our area just for a little while until things are under control, until then, we will provide you with food and water, a safe place to stay for not only you but for your lions."   
Keith and Lance take a moment to process the sudden proclamation. Yet again they are faced with a task that would set them back on finding their friends but, Pidge was here, they don't know how long ago but they were here, so that has to mean something. They look at each other, unsure of what to do, they were put on the spot, they've only been here for about an hour and now the king himself is asking them to be their personal body guards, it does come with their job description as Paladins but still....   
"Please, think it over, once you have an answer, please come back to this palace. By midday tomorrow, that is the longest I'm willing to wait for an answer." Keith and Lance stand up, picking up their helmets and then walk out of the king's home.   
"What do you think?" Lance looks over at Keith, his eyebrows are furrowed together in concern.   
"Let's just get back to the lions before dark, once we're there...we'll... talk about it." Keith walks next to Lance all the way back to the lions, they board them and change out of their armored suits.   
"It's a relief to know that we're partially safe on this planet, do you think we could actually sleep all the way through the night tonight??" Lance shakes off his shin guard and sits down on his bed peels off his shoes, waiting on Keith to respond through his lion.   
"They said they shoot down any Galra ship that enters their atmosphere so...we could try." Keith slips out of the black jumpsuit and grabs one of his dirty sweatpants, "maybe they have someplace to wash clothes... like a river or something."   
"Or maybe we could just go naked like them?" Lance suggests in a playful tone.   
"Never say anything like that again." Keith pulls on a shirt and heads over to Lance's lion.   
"Wouldn't you want to see your boyfriend naked all the time?? I'm hot!" He walks out of his room with just boxers on and strikes a stupid pose that was supposed to be cool for Keith. Keith's cheeks turn a bit pink, he looks away.   
"No, and put your clothes on." Keith grumps up, Lance laughs and goes back into his room, he pulls on his clothes as Keith talks, "If we take this, this will set us back again but probably for even more. They want us to protect them until the Galra around them is probably little to none, that is probably impossible for their numbers."   
"Allura did say that, as Paladins we are sworn to protect everyone." Lance reminds him.   
"I know that, but Pidge was here! They could be so close by!"   
"And the other planet that we think Shiro destroyed..." Lance walks out of the room and into the cockpit where Keith was leaning against his command chair, he walks up and sits down. "So...should we continue searching for them... even if it meant to leave the Bruanerovians in trouble?" Keith sighs and sits on the arm of his chair, his back facing Lance.   
"Maybe we can make a deal to stick around for a few weeks and then after that we go?"   
"Do you think he'll agree to a few weeks? He seems like the guy that would be nice to you only if he got his way..."   
"He'll probably want and exact amount of time." Keith rubs his eyes, and readjusts himself.   
"3 weeks? And if they really are in a huge amount of danger..longer?" Lance reaches up and gently touches Keith's back.   
"That's a long time, you know how far away Pidge would be by then?" Keith closes his eyes and enjoys the feeling of Lance's fingers gently rubbing his back.   
"Or maybe Hunk or Shiro would catch up to us?" Lance pulls Keith down into his lap, wrapping his arms around him.   
"Or the Garrison." Keith looks Lance in the eyes, he doesn't like being devil's advocate but sometimes he has to make sure Lance sees the negative parts of the situation, not all of it can be knitting sweaters and making flower crowns. He wish it was, he really does but they have to think about this.   
"The Garrison probably won't come out this far, they're too cautious." Lance lays his head against Keith's shoulder.   
"You're right there..." Keith looks out on the small wooded area that looks just like candy apple trees and sighs. "You don't think this is slacking off? Staying in one place?"   
"It's doing our job as Paladins, right? Just like Allura said." Lance says quietly.   
"Yeah... okay, 3 weeks, max." 

 

That night, Keith and Lance took the comforters off of their beds and put them together to make a soft cushion to lay on right outside of their lions. Laying next to each other with their hands held together, they stare up at the sky.   
"The skies out here are so clear, the stars are so huge and the colors around them...they're amazing." Lance stares up in awe, "too bad the camera we brought can't really capture the detail... my mom would've loved this." He smiles. Keith counts the time that would've passed on earth by now... they've been gone for a month now so that means... six months have passed on Earth. The time difference is so insane. It's summer in America now... how strange. "Sometimes I wish I never left." Keith looks over at Lance, he's getting deep, Keith is used to this by now and knows how to console him, he moves closer and lays his head on his chest. He gently lays his hand on Lance's stomach.   
"The Garrison would've probably forced you to tell you all you know about the Galra and Earth woul-" Lance cuts him off.   
"I meant in the first place, never of ran into the lion, jumped on your jet, save Shiro, went looking for Pidge, follow Pidge, try to be Pidge friend, try to be a better team, try to be a fighter pilot..."   
"Don't say things like that, you did those things for a reason, you were led to be a paladin for a reason." Keith hates it when he doubts himself.   
"What would life been like if I was content with being a cargo pilot? Would I be able to go home during the holidays and on summer break to see my family? Would Hunk still be safe on Earth along with Pidge? How different would my life be? Don't you ever think about these things?" Lance touches Keith's hand.   
"Not really, what happens is what happens, I don't dwell on the past too much." A silence falls between the two for a while, soon enough Lance starts humming a song softly enough for Keith to barely hear. Keith smiles, he could fall asleep to the sound of his voice.   
"Hey, Keith?"   
"Yeah?"   
"Do you ever think about who your parents are?" He asks in a whisper, he's afraid to ask this, he doesn't know how he will react.   
"No, not ever since I was little."   
"Would you ever want to find them?"   
"Not really, I don't need them as family." It falls silent once more, soon enough Keith is softly snoring on his chest. 

 

The next morning Keith and Lance make their way back to the village, they walk up to the palace and is immediately greeted inside, they walk through the entrance, through the dining hall and into the throne room just as before, the room as not as well lit as the day before and even more cloudy with smoke, they can only see the outline of the king sitting on his throne as he puffs on his hookah.   
"I hope you bring good news." He calls out.   
"We've decided to take you up on your offer," Lance begins.   
"But, we will only be able to stay for three weeks, if things go well, then we must move on." Keith finishes. They can't see any expression to tell whether their deal angered him or not. The two boys nervously wait for an answer, the king thinks over this for quite some time. Finally, he answers.   
"I understand your mission that you are on and even if you will only be here for a short while, we will be grateful for any amount of help that we may get." He slowly stands up, walks down the four steps that lead up to his throne, he looks up at the taller boys and smiles, "follow me and I will show you where you shall be staying and what I would like your help on." He walks forward, Keith and Lance step to the side to let him pass, the follow behind with their helmets in their hands, walking as slow as they can manage in order not to pass the frail man in front of them. They arrive at one small hut that was more put together than the ones the local had, made out of what looked like wood but was shiny like glass, the inside was only one large room with another small room tucked off to the side. The large room had a low rise table in the middle with cushions on every side, on the left was counters, something that represented a sink, an oddly round shaped fridge. On the right was opened crates filled with food.   
In the back left corner, there was one bed, that could easily fit two and stretched all the way to the entrance of the small room. Lance peeked his head into the small room to find out it was a bathroom, a bowl-thing for a toilet, a sink to the right, and a open shower to the left. The king had planned to give this small hut to Pidge for them to stay longer but after their abrupt departure, it laid empty for a while. The King saw no problem in giving the couple a small place to live, with what he calls, his "divine" power, he sensed the two were together, so only having one hut to spare worked out for him. On the other hand, Keith and Lance was surprised at how he already had a place for them to stay and decided to put them in the same hut.   
"We are sharing this place?" Lance asks.   
"Yes, if it is not too much trouble."   
"Not at all, so how do you want us to ward off the Galra?" Keith changes the subject, wanting to get down to business. The king sits down on one of the cushions, followed by Keith and Lance.   
"The Galra that enter our atmosphere are not the problem, we can easily take them down with one hit, but the ones that don't enter and destroy the land around us is what we would like you to take out, they usually come in the cover of night to fire from above, destroying any extra food in those areas."   
"So, they aren't here constantly?" Keith adds in.   
"Not usually. They're also never consistent on how many come or often they come. Our weapon cannot reach that far out to attack them, nor do we have the technology to build something that could help us."   
"So, tonight we'll go out and kick some Galra butt!" Lance raises a fist into the air, Keith smirks, he shifts his gaze from an excited Lance to the calm King.   
"You can count on us." Keith nods.   
"I do hope so." He slowly gets up and heads for the door, he opens it, he stops and turns around, "few more things, you Lions may lay directly behind this home, no one in the village will mess with them, and please do not go beyond the village while you are here, the only danger I will ever put you two in will be with the Galra not the monsters in the woods." He nods, turning back around and leaving them alone.   
"Lets go get Blue and Red!!" Lance jumps up, he pulls Keith up, "I was worried we would get separate houses or rooms or something," he pulls Keith in to a hug, "I've missed sleeping next to you."   
"I could go without the snoring."Keith mumbles.   
"You snore too, dumbass!" Lance squeezes him tighter.   
"Do not!" 

 

They sit the lions down behind their hut just like the king requested, they gather some small things, like change of clothes, some pillows and toiletries. For the remainder of the short day, Lance caught up on some sleep and Keith went through the good they were given, and to his conclusion, he has no idea how to eat this stuff or even what parts are okay to eat.   
Night falls over the planet and they head to their lions, they jump into their chairs and take off into space, when they get out there, they aren't met with any Galra, they circle the dark planet until sunrise, no Galra. For the first few days, this was how things went, on the last day of the first week they were there, they were greeted by a massive amount of Galra. Immediately they were told to surrender their lions but Lance answered them buy blowing up their ship. They easily fly between the Galra ships without getting hit by lines of fire, thanks to all the racing through meteor showers that Keith constantly challenged Lance to and won.   
Blowing each ship to ashes and then the next wave and the next, Keith comes to a conclusion, "Y'know....now that they know two lions are nearby, they'll probably attack here even more... maybe we shouldn't of done this..." Keith evades an onslaught attack of fire and gives it right back.   
"Once we leave, they'll lose interest in this place! It's fine!" Lance calls out, destroying another ship.   
"Or interrogate the people below to why all these lions are protecting them suddenly..."They wait for more ships to show but they never do, sunrise come and soon enough midday, both of them decide that their attempts at attacking have ceased for now. They land back on the planet and head into their hut, they eat some weird stick like thing and head off to bed.   
"I feel like I haven't slept in ages..."Lance groans and plops down on the bed, Keith climbs over top of him and gets under the covers, his eyes are heavy, he mumbles.   
"Let's hope tomorrow their won't be as many..." And to Keith's luck, there was. 

The second week was nonstop fighting, it didn’t matter what time it was, they were constantly fighting. The lack of sleep was getting to them, their energy was low and their reaction times were vastly put back. The only thing that kept them going was each others words of encouragement and promises they made to each other. Such as, "I'll let you be the little spoon tonight" or "if I kill more ships then I get the can of peaches!" And "whoever gets this done faster, won't have to tell everyone else their dating." (Lance lost to the last one of course).   
The third week didn't have a lot of Galra but did have more powerful ones, about halfway into the week, they were landing after a night of fighting, when one of Lance's alarms go off on his dashboard.   
"What is it?" Keith asks, looking at Lance through his lion.   
"You won't believe this." He pulls up the radar and sends the info over to Keith's lion.   
"Is that Garrison ships??" Keith adds the scanner to his lion.   
"Yeah, I gave their dots orange tints. They actually came all the way out here... fuck, do you think they can still track my lion down??"   
"I don't know, power her down and come over to mine." Keith waits for Lance to come over to talk again, "if the Garrison come out here the Galra will definitely take an interest in Earth... and probably as a threat too."   
"Dammit. Dammit!" Lance takes off his helmet, "this is my fault. If we just didn't go to Earth we wouldn't have this problem, this CONSTANT problem." He plops down in Keith's chair and sighs.   
"We went to Earth to see your family! We had no idea that this would happen, okay?" He grabs Lance's face and makes him look at him, "Don't you blame this on yourself, we don't have time for regret, alright??" Lance nods, Keith lets go of his face and goes back to the dashboard, he looks at the scanner once more, "how far out are they?" Lance gets up and stands next to him.   
"Well at the speed their moving, probably in a few days..."   
"Good, that gives us enough time to finish up here and then distract the Garrison to go another way. Where the Galra won't see them." Keith crosses his arms and looks over at Lance, waiting for his opinion on his plan.   
"I think that will work as long as they don't magically speed up and appear by tom-" Keith covers his mouth.   
"Please, don't say it and jinx us." Keith sighs, Lance moves his hand and pulls him into a hug.   
"With our luck, anything can happen." Lance gives Keith a few kisses before leading him off of his lion. They walk hand in hand back into their hut, they are in their jumpsuits when the door opens and the King walks in.   
"You two have been fighting a lot lately." He states.   
"Yes, but nothing too terribly bad." Keith eases the Kings worries.   
"Your time here is coming to an end and I thank you again for your help." He's now leaning against a cane. Both boys take note of this.   
"It's no problem." Lance smiles, leaning back on the bed.   
"You're welcome." Keith stands up a little straighter. The king nods and leaves, Keith lets his shoulders slump and he goes over to the bed and lays down.   
A few days pass and their three weeks are up, they rush their way out of the small leaving ceremony and get in their lions and take off, they shoot into space and head straight toward those Garrison ships, within a matter of minutes they are face to face to large Garrison ships, they circle around them and take off in the other direction, hoping they follow and not continue towards the Galra territory. And of course to their luck, they continue forward.   
"Dammit, what are they doing??" Lance speeds up and circles back around to the ships with Keith not too far behind. They get back in front of the ships, and try to contact them but, they won't answer.   
"Now, what??" Keith puffs out.   
"Follow."   
"What if they fly us into a trap??"   
"Then we get out of the trap!! If the Garrison get in this war, then Earth will be at stake! My family will be at stake! Everyone on Earth is good as dead, you know this!!" Lance lashes out, Keith grinds his teeth and doesn't say anything bad, they follow the four large ships for awhile before they just stop and not move. "What now??"   
"Let's contact them again." Keith tries to talk to the biggest ship but they don't answer, then the next ship and the next, until the smallest and last ship finally answers. "Do you know what kind of territory you are resting at?!" He calls out.   
"Yes, we do. And we are here for a reason." A very familiar female voice says back....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for such a late update, I got a laptop of my own for Christmas so i had to transfer everything on to this one, then i've been sick and caught up in a new video game of mine, auughh, it's just been so much at once! I lost track of time. A part that i've been dying to write is coming up soon tho. :)))))) Thank you for reading. (my cat's head is laying on the edge of my keyboard, she's sound asleep, so cute, i could die)


	14. Foreshadowing

"That voice... I know that voice..." Keith mumbles to himself, "Apyrl??" He calls out. 

"Yeah it's me." She sounds so stern and grown now, her voice is still intimidating but it has more of a grown up flare to it. "We're here to set things right with the Galra! Those beasts! You can't stop us!" She almost let his name slip, she promised not to say anything about them, so she kept the part of the story where they ran into Keith and Lance on her last mission a secret. But, she did come back with one less person, so she had to tell them how he died. A few months passed on Earth and her class graduated from the Garrison, so that means, Lance's, and Hunk's class graduated without them. With her experience out in space and her sheer determination to become powerful enough for revenge for Zeke, when she graduated, she graduated with honors and with enough status to lead her own ship on exhibitions to space. She made an appealing argument to her higher ups about to Galra and that their immediate removal from space was mandatory. But what Apryl didn't know was how massively out numbered she was. 

"I thought you learned your lesson, you can’t get Earth involved in this fight!" Keith feels like he's about to explode, how can one person be so dense?! "You're out numbered and you don't have the power nor technology to fight the Galra, you need to go back before you get yourself and others killed!" 

"Oh and your two lions can take on the Galra?" She sasses back. 

"We can hold off on our own pretty well but the only thing that can protect the universe is Voltron. You can't do this by yourselves!" 

"No one else has to die if you just go back!" Lance adds in. Those words make Apryl freeze up, she's heard this kind of urgency in their voices before, they mean business and part of her wants to obey them. Because if she just listened to them last time, maybe Zeke would be here today. Those words also set her heart on fire, her desire for revenge has become too strong for her just to turn around and go back now. 

"I have to do this, I have to take them out." She says almost robotically. 

"There's more to this than you think, Apryl. You're in over your head!" Keith tries to get through to her. It falls silent for a bit, the space between them is tense and no one is budging, they must be talking it over. 

"I doubt they'll leave, it's the Garrison we're talking about here." Lance looks at Keith, Keith chews on his lip, hoping for the best. Lance sees a spike on his dashboard from the corner of his eye, he looks over and sees that a wormhole is about to open up near them, he clicks on the notification and sees the exact location of the opening. "Uhhhh, Keith.." 

"I see it too..." Keith responds, they both move up and turn around and just as their scanner said, the wormhole opened up right behind where they were standing. Popping out of the wormhole is a giant Galra ship with a bunch of smaller fighter ships, before anyone could say anything or do anything. The Glara just started firing. "SHIT!" Keith returns fire as the Galra's fire slammed against a Garrison ship, exploding it. From the four remaining Garrison ships, small fighter jets took off to fight against the Galra. Keith and Lance team up to destroy the large Galra ship that’s giving out the most damage to the Garrison ships, but their attacks were doing little to no damage at all. Keith's temper was rising, he wanted this over with, he kept hearing other ships explodes on either side and screaming coming from both. From pure instinct, Keith threw everything he's got into his lion and shoots a laser out of his lion's mouth, burning a hole right through the Galra ship, melting everything around the hole, the ship slowly started to descend until it erupted and blew up into millions of pieces, now all that’s left is the smaller fighter jets to take out. 

"That, was, AWESOME!" Lance calls out, he spins back around to see who's left to save or take out. Two ships were remaining out of the total of five that arrived, one was taking heavy damage from a bunch of Galra ships, Lance pounced onto the ones closer to the ship, ripping them apart and kicking them away. Keith circled around the ship and returned fire from far away ships. 

"Their ship! It's failing!" Apryl calls out. 

"Do they have escape pods??" Lance asks. 

"Yes but, they have to be set to land on some kind of surface and we're not near any planet that's safe to land on!" Apryl feels so useless. She sits tense in her command chair as she watches the ship shut down and set on fire, she hear them screaming and begging for help but there's nothing she can do, she's taking on hits herself. She can see Keith and Lance flying around and taking out the smaller ships with ease, she really wasn't able to do anything, she's failed again. Before she knows it, it's just her and her small crew still left alive. 

"Apryl, are you okay?" Lance asks, with slight worry in his voice and when she doesn't reply for a few seconds he speaks up again, "Apryl? Hello?" 

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine, everyone on here is fine, along with the ship...." She says with the sound of defeat evident in her voice. 

"There's a planet nearby that we can land on for a bit, follow us." She follows the red and blue lions to a planet about twenty minutes away and lands. She sits back in her chair and her crew around her is checking on each other and talking about what just happened, she has a hand against her forehead as she rethinks everything. She was so sure that with the Garrison help that she could locate the Galra and take them out, she's been training so hard since she got back on Earth, how could she have failed?? She worked everything out to the smallest detail.... 

"Apyrl! We need to talk!" Keith shouts through his lion. 

"Alright, alright, I'm coming." She gets up and pushes past her crew who is trying to stop her from going outside, she pulls on a suit and leaves her ship, she walks up to Keith and Lance who was waiting for her by their lions. 

"Do you see the damage you've done this time? Do you understand what you're up against now?" Keith crosses his arms. "This is bigger than the Garrison can handle and way bigger than you could ever control." 

"I see that now...." She mumbles.   
Keith sighs and shifts the weight on his feet, "you realize you've probably gotten Earth into this now, you can't run away from this now. This is your responsibility." 

"My responsibility?! I can't even take anyone out into space without dying, how am I going to protect Earth??" She raises her voice at him. 

"Keith is right, you started this, now you have to end it. All of the lives on Earth you just put up for slaughter you have to take responsibility to save!" Lance supports. The crushing reality of what she's just done hits her in the face, the entirety of Earth is now at stake due to her immaturity. 

"How am I supposed to do that??" 

"You've managed to get this far, you'll figure it out." Lance doesn't want to put his family's lives into her hands but it's all he's got, she has the determination to get what she wants done, so if she focuses that ability to saving Earth, then she just might be able to do something right. 

"Now this time, go home and don't come back." Keith says with nothing but venom in his voice. 

"We were coming out here to go towards a planet that has been giving off a bunch of static lately, just like the planet before. I'll give you it's location...." She says to them before heading back to her ship, Lance sighs and turns to Keith. He looks pissed, he reaches out and takes his hand into his. 

"I think she understands this time." He tries to stay positive. 

"Yeah, it only took four Garrison ships to go down." He pouts. 

"But in the long run she could save and look over Earth while were gone." He brings Keith's helmet to his and lightly pushes them together. He looks him in the eyes, "Please don't dwell on this, I hate it when I lose you, it's like your mind disappears and I can't get you back." Keith drops his shoulders and looks down. 

"Okay." He squeezes his hand before they break apart and go back to their lions. They're met with a signal from the ship sitting across from them and they allow it to come in. It's the location of the planet they were heading to. "Well, I guess we have our next mission." He sighs. 

"This kinda gives me a weird feeling." Lance shivers. 

"What doesn't give you a weird feeling??" 

"When my c-" 

"DON'T you dare finish that!!" He yells back. Lance howls in laughter and they watch Apryl take off. 

"I guess we should make another video message about where were going!" Lance pulls up the recorder. 

_Please, take care of my family._

 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Pidge sits in the large command room, going through the old video messages they were told about, wrapped in a blanket with a warm drink sitting on the desk in front of them, they click on a video message file labeled "Blue lion" Pidge watches them, one by one, it starts off with the Lance they knew then, to a more grown up version of Lance. He doesn't joke around as much and annoy Keith as much, why? 

"Hey Pidge!...." a door opens, Pidge turns off the video message, "What're you doing? Could you help me for a sec?" 

"Sure!!" Pidge hops up and leaves the video messages behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very short chapter, I know. But, this next chapter, I really wanted it to be it's own thing. Thank you for reading.


	15. A petal in flames, full of beauty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> READ THIS: If you are triggered by blood, gore, and such things related to that, please be warned. Also, if you are triggered by intense emotional scenes, please be warned. don't say i didn't warn ya lolololololol

"We'll probably get there by late tomorrow morning." Keith, unwraps a sucker and drapes his legs over his command chair. He sticks the cherry flavored sucker in his mouth and looks at Lance through his dashboard, he's upside down in his chair, all Keith can see is his long legs. They changed back into their spare clothes, now in the more comfortable t-shirts and joggers, they take their long journey to the planet the Garrison was heading to. They've been flying for a few hours now and Lance has done nothing but complain about how bored he is. Keith isn't really affected by doing nothing for long periods of time, he leans his head back and closes his eyes. He can feel Red hum, he's become so used to the feeling of her being there that he can't imagine not being around her. Her constant soothing hum, comforts Keith. He looks out of his lion, he scans the vast open space around them, nothing unusual. He looks over at Lance's lion, he's now doing circles in the air. Doesn't he ever get motion sick? "Keep doing that and you'll throw up." Keith warns him. 

"I'm not Hunk." He states. 

"You'll crash into something." 

"I'm not you. Unlike you, I'm a professional, my friends call me the Tailor because of how I thread the needle." Lance says without hesitation, Keith doesn't even know how to respond to that, he just laughs. Lance blushes at the sound of Keith laughing at one of his lines. He sits up right, letting all of the blood rush back to the rest of his body. 

"You got me there, I can't fly my lion while being upside down." He's still laughing. Lance chuckles a bit and leans his dizzy head against the back of his command chair. A few more hours pass and Lance decides to get some rest. It's Keith's turn to stay up and watch over their lions. Lance crawls into his bed and wraps himself in his only blanket. 

"Keith." He calls out, he looks out at the window at his bed. 

"Yeah?" 

"Can't you just come over here and sleep with me?" He asks, with a bit of longing in his voice. 

"One of us has of stay up, Lance... Just get some rest, okay?" 

"Alright..." He falls silent again. He reaches out and touches the cold window, leaving his fingerprints behind. "One day, I hope we can sit under the sun again and not have a care in the world." 

"I do too, and have everyone else there too." Keith cracks open a water bottle. 

"That'd be nice... but if it just ended up being us... I wouldn't mind..." He yawns and closes his eyes, his eyelids are becoming heavy. 

"Goodnight, Lance." 

"Goodnight... Love." He drifts off. Keith's heart skips a beat at the cute name and chugs down half of the water in the bottle. Four hours pass and Lance wakes up, he shoves the blanket off of himself and goes to his command chair. Keith gets up and heads to his bed now. "Dream of something nice so you can tell me later, okay?" Lance leans his head against his hand and looks out on the same, dark, void space. 

"Will do.." Keith falls asleep straight away. Lance runs his fingers through his hair and sighs. He shivers a bit, it's getting colder. He's never been a fan of the cold. He gets up and gets his blanket off of his bed and wraps himself in it. He settles back down in his chair and readies himself for a few hours of staring out into the devoid. 

When Keith gets his four hours of sleep, he gets up and suits up. He joins Lance who is already suited up and is eating a can of space goo. 

"Good morning, love!" He calls out with a mouth full of food. 

"Good morning..." He plops down in his chair and sighs, "Are we close?" 

"Yeah, only a few more minutes and we'll be able to see the planet." He scrapes his spoon at the bottom of the almost empty can. They both look out of their lions, waiting for the planet to slowly come into view, slowly but surely the outline of the planet becomes visible. Soon after the planet itself is completely visible. 

"So, the chill in the air, wasn't just me..." Keith states as he looks down at the icy looking planet. 

"Yeah, I thought it was pretty cold too..." Lance mumbles, he sets the can down as they descend towards the planet until they see what's on the planet. Galra-like buildings cover the planets entirety. "Shit." 

"The Garrison wanted to take an entire planet on??" Keith says in disbelief, "we can't take on an entire planet either, we should just mark this down and know that this area is definitely a use for Voltron." 

"You're right, let's get out of here before they-" Lance cuts himself off, he sees something coming in on his radar. "K-Keith you won't believe this." Lance stares down at the yellow flashing dot. "There's a yellow dot on my radar... yellow." He looks up, Keith looks out of his lion, together they see the yellow lion, closer to the planet, fly towards it. "HUNK" he screams out and takes off towards him. 

"Lance! It's dangerous!" 

"It's HUNK." He calls back, Keith grabs the controls for his lion and is about to take off after him when three large Galra ship warp in around him, they immediately start firing. 

"Dammit." He says under his breath, he turns around and fires at the largest one with all he has, and then gets some distance between them. The ship he hit, bursts into flames and the other two ships let out their fighter ships, all at once Keith is bombarded by hail fire. He does his best to avoid them, and he fires back at the bigger ships while kicking and pushing off of the smaller ones. He's used to all this fighting, he knows their moves and tactics by now but, Keith isn't focusing, he wants to get to Lance as fast as possible. Once he's damaged them enough, he takes off towards Lance and Hunk. It's odd though, how Hunk showed up here just when they did as well, wouldn't they of seen him on the radar before? The only way for them not to know he was there is by him warping in through a wormhole. It's just too convenient for Keith to believe but he doesn't have time to uncover all of facts right now. He gets closer to the planet. Easily avoiding fire, until he sees Lance's blue lion down below.   
Keith swoops down and lands next to Blue. "Lance? Lance what're doing?!" Keith tries to call out to him, Galra are swarming in at unbelievable measures. Lance doesn't respond, that's when Keith notices the light blue shield around Blue. Lance isn't in his lion, why the fuck would he get out of his lion in a place like this??? Keith cusses under his breath, as he jumps up and jumps out of his lion, he makes Red put her shields up as he runs off to find Lance. His feet hit the cold ground. He looks down at the snow, he hasn't seen snow in years, too many years to count. He looks out on the oncoming raid of Galra for a chance to get a glimpse to see Lance. He doesn't see a spot of the color blue anywhere. It''s snowing pretty heavily anyways, he probably can't see more than forty feet in front of himself. Keith runs out into the open, away from the coverage of his lion. He's swarmed by Galra at every side, he blocks, parrys, counters and fights them off the best he can. They're really overwhelming him, he can't seem to take them out, he decides to start making a path. He looks back at Red, he doesn't want to leave her or Blue but Lance... he has to find Lance. He turns away and pushes his way through the crowd. 

"Lance?! Lance?! Where are you??" He calls out, desperate now as he fights, his arms are tired, he's freezing cold. He can't fight off every blow, he's hit repeatedly all over. His heart is racing and his body is screaming in pain. But the only thing he's focusing on, is finding Lance. He ends up at the back of the raid of Galra, eventually he's on his back, pinned down, his helmet pulled off. He's gasping for air, but every breath feels like fire in his lungs, he wheezes and coughs, his fingertips are going numb through his gloves. A knife on the end of a sword swipes against Keith's cheek, he feels that annoying, prickling pain as the sharp blade cuts his face. Hot blood pours out of his left cheek and down towards his ear. A gun is aimed at his head, the world seems to slow around him. He's convinced that this is the end, he's done for, he stares up at the Galra pointing the gun at him, he stares him straight in the eyes. 

A few seconds pass, nothing happens, instead they pull off and turn around. Almost robotically they head off towards the lions. He sits up, he watches them leave him behind, his mind clicks back to his mission, "Lance." He scans the area in front of him, nothing, then the area behind him. He spots a small brick wall, one used for cover, small enough for a few people to hide behind, poking out of the end of the wall, is a blue colored boot. "Lance." He says again, he gets up and quickly staggers towards the boot, he walks over to the opposite side of where the shoe was sticking out of. He sees Lance sitting in the snow, his helmet is gone as well, his hair is sprinkled with snow, he can see his breath puff out in small clouds in front of him. "Lance." He says again. 

Keith gets closer, his boyfriend's body more visible now, he's leaning against the light gray wall, the snow is covering not only the wall but the ground around it and Lance. The blue of his suit sticks out like a sore thumb in the snow, Keith can't even imagine what his red suit must look like in this. Then, he gets a taste of what it might look like, when he notices the red snow around Lance. His voice is stuck in his throat, he kneels down beside Lance, Lance looks over at him. 

"Keith, Keith, Hunk, it wasn't him. When... When I landed and got out of my lion to chase him... he turned into a Galra... it wasn't him." He leans against Keith. Keith looks down at his body, his chest plate is torn to shreds. There's only one piece left intact, the part that comes to a point at the bottom of the chest plate. And the reason why it was still intact was because, it was stabbed right into his stomach. Blood was rushing out of the wound, dark red blood, almost black looking. Keith begins to shake, his mind is hazy, the snow all around them is red, the white on their suits are red. 

"Lance, we have to get you back to your lion." He manages to get out. 

"Ookay, yeah." He nods, he reaches out and holds onto Keith's upper arm. He laughs a bit but stops and groans from the pain, "It looks like it's your turn to finally save me..." 

"And I will." Keith assures him, Lance smiles, he looks out on the field in front of him, the snow is falling more softly now, his vision is blurry, he feels so cold, but Keith, he's so warm, it's like all the heat from his body is protruding from his suit and on to him. 

"Keith, I've never seen snow before, It's pretty...." 

"Yeah, it is." He grits his teeth and gets one hand under his back and the other under his legs. 

"Pretty, just like you.... just like you." He touches Keith's face, he wipes away the blood from his cheek, Keith isn't sure if Lance knew he just smudged blood all over his face or if he even knew that there was a wound there, Lance starts to close his eyes. 

"Lance! Lance! Open your eyes!" He yells, he cracks them open. Keith manages to stand up with Lance in his arms, pure adrenaline is rushing through him, he can't feel how heavy Lance is. Lance looks over at their lions, he sees all the Galra. Keith doesn't know how he's gonna get them through it, but he will. He will. 

"Remember when we had sex and you fell asleep right after?" Lance looks back at Keith who is trudging them through the snow. 

"Of course." 

"I went to your lion and laid your clothes out to dry because we played in the water..." he continues, Keith nods, "I saw the flower crown I made you all that time ago, it was dead but you kept it." 

"That's because I love it." He looks down at Lance, he's still smiling. Keith is finding it hard to fight the tears in his eyes now. 

"I love it too...." They get closer to the lions, the Galra is still shooting at the barriers. "Keith, Keith I was wrong." Lance's voice is more desperate now. 

"About what?" Keith asks, his voice shaky. 

"I always talked about home and how I wanna go there." 

"I know...." 

"My home, it was here," Lance reaches up and touches Keith's chest plate, right above his heart, "It was here, all along." He slides his hand up to Keith's cheek once more and   
brings his face down, he kisses him. He pulls away, he can't feel anything anymore, only cold. He closes his eyes. 

"Lance! Lance! OPEN YOUR EYES!" he screams, tears streaming down his face. His mouth is filled with a metallic taste of blood, he stops and stares down at Lance in his arms, he's still breathing.... "Lance, wake up, wake up." He repeats over and over. His knees feel weak, he's sobbing uncontrollably now. "Lance, please, don't go." His words are chopped up and broken. 

A huge beam of light blasts down from above, lighting the place up, Keith looks up, he can't believe his eyes, it's the Altean ship... right? It's not fake?? He looks towards where the crowd of Galra was and all that's there is smoke. 

"Lance! Keith! Get on to your Lions!" He hears Allura call out, there's no other choice he has, he runs to Blue and rushes Lance to his bed, he goes to his cargo, shaking, dropping everything, knocking things over, he finds that pink healing component and takes a chunk out, he runs back to Lance, he shoves it in Lance's mouth. He kneels next to Lance's bed, he holds his hand. His breathing is shallow, his expression unmoving and blank. 

"Lance....please." He's still crying, he feels them moving upward, into the ship. Once they're in, Shiro and Pidge run in, they find Keith covered in blood, crying his eyes out, and they see Lance, motionless, Pidge pulls Keith away so Shiro can pick up Lance and hurry him to a healing pod. Keith runs behind him. 

 

Keith wont talk to anyone and won't say what happened. He sits directly in front of Lance's healing pod and doesn't move. All they can do, is leave food for him to eat and wait. Keith finally changed his clothes after three days, he took a shower after five, one time, Allura caught him humming a song, a familiar one but it didn't last long before Keith broke out into tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading & have fun watching season 2 tomorrow!!!!


	16. Looking for a sign of life

It's late, everyone has gone to bed, well, everyone as in Shiro, Allura and Coran. Pidge is up tinkering around with any and all technology they can get their hands on. Keith wanders off towards his lion until he sees Pidge working on their computer, he walks in there without thinking, whether it was out of curiosity or just being lonely; Keith doesn't know. He walks up behind Pidge and peers over their shoulder to see the number covered screen their working on. 

"What is that?" Keith asks. Pidge jumps at the sudden voice. 

"Ah! Oh, hey Keith. It's just a diagnostic scan of Green, I wanna make sure she's okay after all we've been through." 

"Oh yeah, you took out a bunch of Galra ships for king Etzan." Keith simply states. 

"How did you know that?" Pidge turns around and looks at him a bit shocked. 

"Lance and I, we....we found that planet too, we helped him too, he uh.."Keith is finding it hard to talk, he just doesn't have the energy, especially when he talks about Lance, "he wants to thank you for helping him when you have the chance to go back." 

"Thanks for telling me...." Pidge looks back at the computer, Keith turns around and goes back out of the room, he hugs himself and makes his way back to Lance's healing pod. He stands in front of the pod and looks at Lance, he looks like he's in pain, Keith wishes he could take all that pain away, he sits down and looks at his hands. He doesn't remember the last time he's slept a whole night, he yawns and rubs his eyes. Yet again he's faced with this overwhelming numbing feeling, it seems to start at his core and spread throughout his body, the tips of his fingers and toes tingle, his body feels heavy and his mind is out of his control. He can only explain it as a second voice inside him, saying things that he wouldn't normally think. 

_he's gonna die and it's your fault_

_you're alone just like you should be_

_you ruined Voltron and now the universe is going to fall into despair, you should just die too_

Keith grits his teeth together and shakes his head, he doesn't believe those things, he would never think like that! He looks up at Lance, he'll make it, he knows it. Stubborn and smooth talking Lance can get through anything.... he hopes. Every moment of the past few months play through Keith's head like a movie... crashing, waking up in Lance's lion, going to different planets with Lance, from giant toads and killer plants. Bare planets and ones filled with flowers, going home and leaving to only have things become more real and stressful. Fighting and people dying. Those are all moments he thinks about, but it doesn't affect him much until he thinks about the small moments, the ones that are buried deep in those big moments, the ones that fall between cracks and seem almost unimportant. 

The way Lance would hug him and his fingers would gently brush against his skin or when Keith was just sitting there looking out on the scenery in front of them and he would feel Lance's eyes on him, he would turn around and Lance would always be looking the other way with a slight blush on his cheeks. All those little moments, the ones filled with glances, soft touches and sweet words. The moments where all they had was themselves and the sky above. How Lance would babble about the future and his daydreams, he would always get so deep whenever he looked up at the stars, it's kind of like, when he saw those stars, something sparked inside of him, something that would let him dream. Dream about anything and everything he could possibly make up in this universe. Keith wished they were still out flying around and bitching at one another, he wished he had those moments in his hands, something real to look at, something physical.... 

"The camera" Keith whispers to himself, with sudden energy, Keith jumps up and runs down the hall, he makes his way towards Red, he flies to her as quick as possible. He lands in his command chair, "Red! Is my camera in here?" She purrs in response, she can feel his stress, anxiety and pain. She confirms that the camera is there but she keeps purring to let Keith know everything is okay. Keith leans against Red and presses the power button, nothing. The camera died, Keith curses under his breath and takes out the dead batteries.   
"Thanks, Red." He heads back into the castle, he considers to ask Pidge if they had any batteries or someway to charge the camera but, he's afraid to tell anyone that they went back to earth, he goes back to Lance's pod and shoves the dead batteries back into their slots; that's when Keith spots the chip....he pops it out and holds the small card between his index finger and thumb. He could plug this into a computer or something, right? He looks up at Lance before walking out of the room again and going into the main control room. He checks all the computers he can touch to see if there's any kind of slot he can put this card in. So far, nothing. He sighs in frustration and heads of to the main control center, where Allura usually stays during the day. He walks up to his spot, and his chair raises up from the floor, he sits down, and looks around the chair as a last ditch effort to find something he can put this chip in. 

Nothing. He groans and closes his eyes, why can't he have this one thing?? This one thing to keep him sane until Lance gets better. He slams his hand down on his arm rest and his screen pops up. He gets this feeling, this same feeling as when his lion is trying to tell him something. He looks down at the card in his hand and he raises up to the holographic screen, it sucks it in and a loading screen pops up, he doesn't know if it's reading it or downloading it or what. A loading bar popped up and that's it. 

Keith waits a while for the bar to load all the way through, once it finishes a screen pops up with all their photos on it. He reaches up and touches the first one, it's of him sleeping in Lance's bed, his hair is a mess, the blankets are tossed everywhere and wrinkled, the sunlight is pouring in on his body as he's cuddled up to Lance's pillow. Keith still thinks it's an ugly photo but he knows Lance thinks the opposite. Keith clicks through the photos, one by one, they took a lot more than they thought they did. He was on one where Lance took a photo of him laying on the dock with the sun beating down on him when he hears the doors behind him open, he closes it the screen and looks back. It's Allura. 

"I thought I felt someone messing around in here, I was making sure it wasn't Pidge trying to experiment with the controls." She smiles at Keith, he looks away and doesn't say anything back, "Keith, I know you're worried, but you really should get some rest." She approaches his chair, she kneels down next to it, resting her arms on the arm rest, "what were you doing in here, anyways?" She asks in a soft tone. 

"Nothing, I was just....I." Keith doesn't know what to say. He looks away from her, trying to figure out what to say. 

"What were you looking at?" She reaches up and tries to pull up the holographic screen. 

"It's personal!" He yells and pushes her hand away. 

"Oh. Oh, okay. I understand." She stands up, "you know where I'll be if you need anything but Keith." He looks up at her, "Please, try and get some rest." 

"I'll try..." He says in a softer tone, he already feels bad for raising his voice at her. He waits until she's gone and a few minutes after that before closing out of the screen, getting the card back and going back to Lance's healing pod. He sits down next to it, he pulls his knees up to his chest and wraps his arms around them. Then, he lays his head against the side of the healing pod, listening to it hum. "Lance...goodnight." He yawns, and drifts off. 

Keith wakes up in his bed hours later, still in a sleepy haze, he tosses and turns a bit, stretching his arms out, feeling the bed, feeling all around him. Coming out of his haze he realizes where he is. He sits up and looks around. Just in his jeans and t-shirt, he walks out of room, annoyed that someone moved him. The soft patter of his bare feet is the only sound in the castle around him until he hears footsteps behind him, someone wearing boots, in fact. Keith looks over his shoulder and sees Shiro. 

"Hi...Shiro." He manages out, Shiro seems pleased with that response. For the past week or so, he barely got an eyeroll out of Keith. Keith stopped and waited for Shiro to catch up. 

"Going to the kitchen to eat, I hope." Shiro comments, his tone soft and caring. 

"I'm really not all that hungry..." 

"I've barely seen you eat since you've come back, you have to be starving, Keith, c'mon, one small meal and I'll leave you alone." He places his hand on Keith's shoulder. Keith sighs and reluctantly went along with Shiro to the kitchen. He leans against the counter as Shiro grabs one of the nozzles and pumps out space goo on to a plate. "I know it's nothing like what Hunk would make but it's something." He slides the plate to Keith and then a fork along with it. 

"Thanks." Keith picks up the fork and stabs it into the goo, "Lance and I, we would share cans of this stuff..." He sticks a mouth-full into his mouth and chews. He almost wants to tell Shiro about the human food they had at one point too and how this stuff pales in comparison but he better wait until Lance wakes up for that. 

"You and Lance seemed of gotten along a lot better since you've been out there on your own together." Shiro comments. Keith tries to ignore that comment by shoving more food into his mouth. "I never thought I would see the day when you and Lance get along." 

"How do you know if we get along?" Keith asks with a mouth full of food. 

"Oh, I guess Allura didn't tell you. C'mon." He gestures Keith to follow him. Keith picks up his plate of food and follows Shiro out of the room and down the hall back into the main control room. "Every so often, they would get a huge cluster of messages from you two but it was always either from a few weeks ago or month ago, they couldn't keep up with you. He pulls up the files labeled "Red Lion" and "Blue Lion." 

"Click on Lance's." Keith walks up closer to the giant screen, Lance pops up talking about how he crashed, then the next one plays, he's talking about Keith, then the next one, more about Keith. Then they were together.....that seemed like such a long time ago. Keith stood there watching the videos, most of them, he hasn’t even seen before, it's just Lance talking about everything and anything. "Have you watched all of these?" He looks back at Shiro, he shakes his head. "I want to stop now." Keith backs away from the large screen, he hasn't seen Lance today, that doesn't sit well with him. Without saying anything else, Keith walks towards the door. 

"I found that camera." Shiro speaks up, Keith turns around and looks back at Shiro. "I know you went to Earth, I know you're with him....Keith-" 

"We had to go, Lance needed to go." Keith cuts him off. 

"I'm not mad about that." Shiro chuckles a bit, "I don't know how you got him off of that planet but... I want you to know, that I support you both." Keith's face sets ablaze, he rushes out of the door and goes back to Lance's healing pod. Pidge is sitting there on their computer. 

"Hey, Pidge..." Keith mumbles, he walks up and looks up at Lance, his face doesn't look pained anymore, he looks relaxed, peaceful. Keith sighs in relief and gently touches the pod. 

"I'm surprised to see you away from the pod for this long." Pidge looks up at Keith from their crisscrossed posture on the floor. 

"Could you help me out with something?" Keith asks, not taking his eyes off of Lance. 

"Sure." Pidge nods. 

"Could you figure out a way to print out things like... photos?" He looks behind him, making eye contact with his now intrigued friend. 

"Do you have photos to print?" 

"…..Can you do it?" 

"Probably." Pidge smirks, as they cross their arms. After an entire morning and half of the afternoon tinkering around with different devices, Pidge manages to make a printer. Keith was hesitant when handing over the chip from his camera. Pidge stuck the card in and waited as all of the photos on the card began to print. Keith caught every photo that fell out of the small dispenser, the photos were printed out on what felt like plastic, each photo was about as thick as a piece of cardboard, they were bendable and shiny. The photos came out great though, clear and vivid. Pidge ended up having to get a box for Keith to hold all of the photos in. 

"Thank you, Pidge... it means a lot." He looks up at Pidge, they smile and brush it off like its no big deal that they just made a printer out of scraps. Keith neatly stacks the photos in the box and heads back to Lance. He sits the box down and runs his fingers through his hair, it's getting long again. He can't wait for more of Lance's teasing for having a mullet. 

Late that night, Keith was fresh out of the shower and finally changed his clothes again. He walked up to Lance's healing pod, he checked his stats, he couldn't really make out what they said but for the past week he's gotten the basics of what certain stuff meant. Keith's heart skipped a beat when he saw numbers counting down on his healing pod. 

20- Keith wasn't sure what he was seeing was real. 

19- it has to be real, right? 

18- does this mean he's okay? 

17- Keith stands directly in front of the pod. 

16- Keith starts getting nervous. 

15- he's shaking in anticipation. 

14- it's starts setting in that Lance is going to be back. 

13- Lance is going to wake up. 

12- everything is going to be alright. 

11- he braces himself to catch him if he falls. 

10- Keith stares at the numbers as they get smaller. 

9- his heart is racing. 

8- smoke start flowing out of the bottom. 

7- he looks up at Lance now. 

6- he looks to see if he's breathing. 

5- is he moving? 

4- more smoke blocks the few feet of space between them. 

3- Keith can't see Lance anymore. 

2- the pod opens fully. 

1- he hears movement. 

0- Lance crashes into him. 

They tumble back onto the floor, Keith holding a drowsy Lance in his arms. Keith's feels his stomach where he was stabbed by his armor and it's perfectly healed. Keith begins to cry. 

"Lance!" He hug him tight, he groans. 

"What time is it?" He mumbles against Keith's chest. 

"Lance, Lance you're okay!" Keith laughs a little bit, Lance sits up and rubs his eyes, the first thing he sees is Keith, crying but smiling. He reaches out and wipes away his tears. 

"Don't cry." 

"I was so worried!" Keith throws his arms around him and squeezes him as tight as he can. 

"You? Worried about me? Oh jeez, I'm in trouble now." He chuckles. He hugs Keith back, entangling his fingers into his damp hair, he leans down a bit and kisses the top of his   
head. They sit there like that for a good minute before Lance sits back on his butt, looking Keith eye to eye now. 

"You were out for a little over a week." 

"A whole week?" He says a little shocked. 

"Over a week." Keith corrects. 

"Where is everyone? Is Hunk here? What about Pidge and Shiro?" He looks around them, spotting the box of pictures but not knowing what it is. 

"It's late, everyone is in bed...well, everyone but us...." 

"So, everyone is alright?" Lance smiles, Keith hesitates. He knows he's very close with Hunk, so he tries to say this as calmly and nicely as possible. 

"Lance....They, we haven't found Hunk yet." Lance's happy demeanor drops immediately, "I don't know much about where he is or if there's any videos of him but, he's the only one   
we have left to.....find..." Lance gets up and looks around. Keith gets up, "Lance?" 

"We have to find Hunk, Keith." His voice stern. 

"I know, we will, can't you rest first?" Keith takes his hand into his. Lance looks over at Keith and spots the noticeable circles under his eyes and worry in his face. Lance nods. 

"Okay, okay.." He pulls Keith to him, lifting his chin up, kissing him, "we'll rest."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the horrible delayed update, that's my fault, i was trying to draw more than i have been. Time just slipped away from me! anywho, thank you for reading~


	17. Determination

"Your hair has gotten so long again..." Lance runs his fingers through Keith's hair, he's talking to himself, Keith is sound asleep, he has his arms around Lance in a pretty tight grip for someone who is asleep. "You were really worried weren't you?" Lance grazes his thumb across Keith's cheek bone, "if you keep frowning like that you'll get wrinkles..." He leans forward and kisses his forehead. He rests his head back on the pillow they're sharing and scans his room, everything is neat and tidy, just as he left it. He sees his jacket folded on a chair along with his shirt. He sees the Altean robe he found in the drawers in his bathroom hanging up by the door. It's like that day was frozen in time.   
It was right before Allura was taken by Zarkon and Shiro was on a hell-bent mission to save her. They woke up like it was like any other day in space and for Lance he slowly pulled himself together until he had enough energy and enough bottled up loneliness for home stored away to face everyone else. He was suited up and ready to go for the day, although he preferred his regular clothes over his armored suit, he's gotten used to wearing it for long periods of time. He can't wait until he slides back into his old clothes once more, Lance's eyes become heavy after thinking about the past that seemed almost a century ago, he drifts off and joins Keith in his dream world. 

Keith opens his eyes and his face in pressed into Lance's chest, Lance has his arms wrapped around Keith's head as he snores. For a very brief moment Keith thinks he's on Earth, he woke up a similar way back then, but he quickly came to his senses. He pulls his head free and takes a deep breath, getting rid of Lance's scent in his nostrils. "You need a bath." He mumbles to himself, he rubs his eyes and sits up, he stretches his arms up in the air and yawns. His back pops a few times before he slumps down in a relaxed pose. He's still hazy from sleep when he feels Lance's hand on his back, it snakes around to his side and he pulls Keith back down. 

"You look a lot better." Lance hums, his eyes cracked open. 

"So do you but you've smelled better." Keith comments. 

"Ah! What??" Lance gasps, he reaches his arm up and smells himself, he chokes a bit on his smell, "Ahhhh, you're right." He suddenly gets a devilish smirk on his face as he sits up and straddles Keith, whose face is now blood red. "So this means bath time right??" 

"For you, maybe!" Keith blurts out. 

"Hey! Hey! Keith! Lance is ou-oh." Coran barges in on the scene. Keith covers his face and doesn't say anything. 

"Hey Coran!" Lance jumps up, just in his boxers. 

"Hello, number 3! I'm glad to see you're awake!" He claps Lance on the back, Lance laughs, "I was coming to tell Keith you were up but I guess you already beat me to the punch!" He backs out of the room, "be sure to get something so eat! We don't need you passing out again!" He walks back down the hall, Lance turns around, his cheeks a bit red, Keith is sitting up on the bed now, his legs hanging off of the edge. He's staring at the scar on Lance's upper stomach, it's almost perfectly parallel to the one he got from the crash, but this one is obviously more severe looking. Lance walks up to him, he takes Keith's hand and places on the scar. 

"Let's see it as proof that I'm alive and I won't go down that easy." Lance says with a soft smile on his face, Keith looks up at him, that tingling, warm sensation spreads through him. He sucks in his bottom lip, with tears threatening to fall down his cheeks. He nods and smiles. 

"Okay." Lance cups Keith's face in his hands as he kisses him, he pulls away and stretches his body. 

"Shower here we come!" He grabs Keith's wrist. 

"We?!? No-ah!" Lance drags him into his bathroom. 

 

During the time Keith was towel trying Lance's hair, Shiro came in to sit with them, Pidge came in and checked on them and Allura brought everyone food. 

"Your hair has gotten longer, Lance." Keith plays with strands of his hair. 

"Yours is growing back in too." He leans back against Keith, who is on his knees behind Lance. He looks back at him and grabs a strand of his black hair that falls into his eyes. 

"We should cut it." 

"No way! And you should shave!" He rubs Lance's stubbly cheek. 

"This makes me look wayyyyy hotter, not gonna happen." Lance crosses his arms and closes his eyes. 

"So, how did this happen?" Allura asks, a bit eager to get the scoop. 

"What? Us? Keith totally came on to me!" He grins. 

"It was you!" Keith gently shoves Lance as he sits down next to him on the bed, "We were on a dock by the ocean and things just happened but it was completely all Lance." 

"Nah, it was Keith, he just doesn't want to say it." 

"Whatever lover boy." Keith grumbles. Lance laughs. 

"If we can change the subject here...." Shiro begins, everyone in the room looks over at him, "we still haven't found Hunk, we haven't even gotten a message or the slightest read on him anywhere." Lance tenses up at the mention of Hunk, his previously playful demeanor fizzles out to very serious one. 

"Nothing at all?" Lance asks. 

"Nothing." Shiro shakes his head. 

"Have you tried to locate the yellow lion through Allura, like she did when we first came onto the castle?" Keith asks. 

"We've tried that multiple times, yes." Allura speaks up. 

"Maybe our lions could come together and try to feel for Hunk and his lion or something??" Lance offers an idea. 

"We could try something like that." Shiro stands up, Lance is first to follow him out, then Allura and lastly Keith. 

 

Everyone piles into their lions and fly out into space, right next to the castle. 

"You sure you're up for this Lance?" Shiro asks, still worried about his current strength level. 

"Yes! Let's do this!" He says a little annoyed but eager at the same time. 

"How...should we do this?" Keith asks. It falls silent for a few seconds before Pidge speaks up. 

"Remember when we were still trying to figure out how to form Voltron and Shiro told us to focus on becoming one and focus on our main goal?" 

"And if we focus on finding the yellow lion, could we actually pinpoint where Hunk is?" Lance asks. 

"Well, we won't know until we try." Shiro adds in. Everyone closes their eyes, unsure on what to focus on, Hunk or the lion. They don't get anywhere with this blurry mindset. 

"Agh! This is frustrating!" Lance calls out. 

"Focus in on the yellow lion! Connect with your lion!" Pidge yells back, with a annoyed huff, it quiets down again, connecting to their lions isn't too hard for them but as they all   
focus in on finding the yellow lion, they don't come up with any kind of location on the lion but they did see something. Something that struck Lance deep, it kickstarted a fire, a determination to find Hunk a fast as possible. 

As they were focusing on finding the yellow lion, all four of them got the same image in their head at the same time, it lasted for only a few seconds but the imagery was strong enough to create a huge amount of anxiety and tension. It was an open area of space, no stars or planets nearby, just pure blackness, in the middle of that darkness was the yellow lion. It's impressive amount of armor was torn to shreds and it was floating lifelessly in space. Sideways in an almost upside down position, no light shined from within the lion and there was no sign of Hunk. 

They flew back into their bays and met up at the main control center with Allura. 

"How are we supposed to get anything out of that??" Lance exclaims. 

"What did you all see?" Allura asks. 

"I presume it wasn't good." Coran joins the group. 

"We saw the yellow lion floating in space, not looking too well." Shiro tells Allura. 

"Was there any kind of indication where he could be? We could track down the area by the background." Allura tries to help but Shiro shakes his head. 

"Nothing at all." 

"There had to be something." Pidge steps forward, "How were we able to see the yellow lion if it was floating through darkness? There had to be some sort of light shining down   
on it. Does anyone remember seeing a reflection in the eyes of the lion?" 

"No, I was looking at the damage..." Keith finally speaks up, he places his hand on Lance's back, showing him that he's not alone. 

"What would that light of been?? A star or something?? He can't be that close to a star, it's dangerous. We have to find him." Lance starts getting even more riled up, his anxiety drowning him. That's his best friend, he can't just stand to the side and wait for fate to play out. 

"We can't rule that out but if we all work together and recreate the image, then maybe we can figure out where it was." Pidge says with a new found determination. 

"So we go back in our lions and try to get that image again as Allura and Coran piece together the image for us?" Keith offers a plan. 

"We all have to focus on different parts of the image and get as many details as possible." Pidge adds in. 

After a few hours of seeing the disturbing image of the yellow lion over and over, Allura and Coran say they have probably have enough to the recreated image for them to come back and critique it. They pile back into the control room and they're met with a huge holographic picture of the scene they've been seeing over and over for a while now. It was almost perfect, except for a few details here and there, they fixed, it was spot on. Coran even made it 3D, giving a possible idea of what the other side of the lion looks like. Now, it just takes a lot of focus and determination at looking for the smallest details for hints of where Hunk and his lion could be.   
Lance is restless, he's been pacing the floor for a good thirty minutes before Shiro nudges Keith. Keith looks up at Shiro. 

"Try and get his mind off of this for a bit, he's probably still weak from the healing pod, we don't want him passing out again..." He whispers, Keith nods in agreement. He walks up to Lance and stops him from walking. His face is coated in worry, it's like he's looking at Keith but he's also looking right through him. 

"Let's..."he thinks for a second, "go for a walk." He takes both of his hands into his and leads him out of the control room. "Lance, we'll find him, that's our main objective, we'll get him back." Keith assures him. Lance doesn't say anything, Keith grips his hand tighter, "I promise." Lance looks over at him, this time, actually looking at him. 

"This might sound crazy." 

"Shoot." Keith offers to listen as they walk down the long, dimly lighted hallway. 

"What if....I know that the Hunk back on that ice planet wasn't real but what if we do find him in a situation like that and I'm too weak? What if I almost die again because I couldn't put up a fight like you did to save me?" Keith is taken back by his words, he looks down and thinks for a moment. Lance should be resting, he should be taking it easy and not over working himself. But that kind of emotional weight on his shoulders must be what's making him so restless. 

"Then we train, I'll help you, we'll become so strong, we can take out an entire fleet of Glara with our bare hands." He stops and turns to Lance, he seemed to like that answer, he smiles and pulls Keith into his arms. 

"I don't know what I'd do without you..." He kisses the top of his head, "Let's get working!" He declares and takes off down the hall without Keith. 

"Hey!" He runs after him. 

 

**ERROR**   
**ERROR**   
_Impact ahead_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah! I'm not dead! I've had a crazy work schedule recently and time has just slipped through my fingers! Thank you for reading!


	18. It's been so long

Keith and Lance have been fighting on the workout deck most of the day, it started out serious, where they took out each gladiator with ease, soon enough they started to play around, giving each other quick kisses between hits and brushing up against one another. Towards the late afternoon, they both quickly tossed their weapons to the side and laid down on the hard floor, catching their breath. 

"Level 9 was more intense than I thought it would be..." Lance wipes the sweat from his forehead. 

"Yeah but, your long-range attack really helps when I'm surrounded by those gladiators." Keith peels off his sweat soaked gloves and tosses them to the side. He brushes his hair out of his face, it's getting long again, barely brushing past his eyebrows. 

The cold metal like ground feels soothing to both overworked boys. Pidge walks onto the training deck, with bayard in hand, but something about their demeaner says they're not here to work out. 

"Hey Pidge!" Lance sits up all the way, rather than Keith who props himself up only by his elbows. 

"Hey guys, can I borrow the training deck for a while? I'm almost at an intermediate level at altean." Pidge smiles proudly. 

"Sure." Keith shrugs and pushes himself up from the ground, grabbing his gloves as he does. He extends his hand down to Lance and helps him up as well. "Besides, I've been wanting to show Lance something anyways." He tugs Lance along as he makes way to his room. 

"Keith, I dunno if I have the energy right now, for this..." Lance whines a bit. 

"First of all, we're not doing that, idiot and secondly, sit down." Keith gently pushes Lance towards the bed as he goes over to his closet and opens up the set of doors. Lance moves around a bit, trying to peek at what Keith is doing. "remember when you asked me if our lions have printers?" Keith picks up a box of the thick, plastic photos and brings them over to the bed. He opens the top and Lance gasps softly. He picks up one of the photos, he holds the cardboard like rectangle in his hand. 

"How did you..." He looks up at Keith. 

"Pidge helped me make a printer and print them out while you were healing..." He picks up one of the photos as well, it was one of Lance looking out on the ocean, his hair messy from the wind, his cheeks slightly red from embarrassment. "It helped me stay somewhat sane." 

"I love it." Lance starts shuffling through all the photos, there's pictures of each planet they visited, the people they met and of each other. All the times they had spent together over the past few months, hit Lance hard. From crashing, to finding those giant toads and almost being killed by a plant. Then to finding that boy and protecting the Brunerovians. So much has happened, all those adventures, they almost caught them all on camera. Lance fought of an urge to cry at the relief that it was all over until he found a few photos of his family. He picks up a picture of his mom sitting on the back porch drinking a cup of coffee, the sunrise in the background, he didn't take this photo.... 

"I thought you might've wanted a picture or two of your family, I was too nervous to ask for some so, I snuck in a few..." Keith sheepishly smiles. Lance stares at him for a few seconds before tears start flooding from his eyes, and rush down his cheeks. Keith's face turns beet red and he tries to comfort Lance. Lance just holds the box of photos and cries. He let's all of his emotions out, he cries for missing his family, for everyone who had died along the way, he cries for being so selfish and almost leaving Keith behind and almost leaving Voltron without a Blue paladin. 

"It's okay! I'm here, I'm sorry, I didn't want to make you cry." Keith pulls Lance's head to his shoulder. 

"You've always been there for me, thank you, thank you." He cries into Keith's chest. After Lance calms down, they play around with the photos until they realize that with enough friction, the back of the photos become sticky. Lance grabs the photo of Keith sleeping in Lance's bed and runs into his room. Keith follows close behind, Lance slaps it right above his bed and it sticks to the wall. 

"You know I don't like that photo! My mouth is open in it! Looks like I'm drooling!" 

"Too bad!" Lance runs back into Keith's room and he grabs a few other photos, a few of Keith laying on the dock back on the jungle like planet, the one's of his family and his favorite places and he places them all above his bed. Keith stands there in defeat, his arms crossed, watching Lance slap photo after photo on the wall. After his frenzy, he goes over to Keith, Keith drops his arms down so Lance can hug him. Keith wraps his arms around Lance, in a perfect embrace. Almost as if they were made for one another. "Keith..." Lance says in full seriousness." 

"Yeah?" 

"I uh...." 

_Just say it, Lance, tell him._

"I'm getting pretty hungry, soooo, let's go eat!" he smiles. 

"Okay." Keith pulls away from the hug, takes Lance's hand into his and leads the way to the kitchen. 

_It's only a matter of time._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it really has been such a long time.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first time I've ever shared a story to the public, I hope you enjoyed it.


End file.
